


Hot-Blooded

by frantic



Category: Bakemonogatari, Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Gen, Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 15:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 77,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20176651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frantic/pseuds/frantic
Summary: Araragi Koyomi just wanted to live an ordinary life. He had no special traits whatsoever. His most common desire was 'to be like a plant'.Seeing the undergarments of a superhero can really turn a person's life around. [Fusion]





	1. Cognition 1.1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! This is a story called Hot-Blooded. A lot of inspiration is taken from Xorn's Hundred Gauntlets, so go check that out if you like this story!

I saw a superheroine’s panties for six and a half seconds.

It doesn't seem like that long, but every second was an hour in my mind. A ticking clock winding back for every moment I stared, and yet I couldn't take my eyes away from Panacea's unmentionables.

_ Black_, a traitorous thought absentmindedly whispered in my ear. _ How scandalous_. 

The rush of cars died down, and there I was, on the other side of the road, with Panacea blushing furiously as she glared at me. I waved slightly at her. She did not wave back. I glanced mournfully down at my bag with a sigh. It contained one dirty book and two reference books. I was a simple man, and as such, would not get rid of my dirty book simply to appease someone for seeing their underwear, even if they were as renowned as Panacea. Such a thing was not in my nature as a person. But my reputation was seriously at risk here. I was just an ordinary person, and Panacea was a superhero. If she told everyone about my lecherous glances at her, I would definitely become an outcast. 

I waited patiently at the crosswalk for the light to turn green. It was a long light, and so I was forced to wait for some time. The hardest part was pretending not to notice Panacea’s glare piercing through my being like knives. It was harder than it sounds, especially when I knew in my soul that if Panacea had been gifted with Legend’s skillset instead of her own, I would have been dead in an instant.

The light turned green.

I crossed the street. I looked at Panacea. She looked at me.

“Do you want some ice cream?”

_ hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded _

I gave her an ice cream stick. She glared at me.

"Did... You didn't see them, right?"

I took a bite of my ice cream.

The obvious answer was before me. As a man, I could not forget Amy Dallon's panties. Black and lacy. Maybe she just likes to feel a little something extra underneath her robe? I certainly didn't know. But I could absolutely not forget for even a moment the glimpse I had received of a superheroine's panties.

"I didn't see them," I said, like a liar.

"You're lying." She answered, like a saint. Her glare was modest yet fierce. "Idiot. Pervert. Loser who has nothing but girls on his mind."

I cringed at the insults, but did not deny them. Every word that exited Amy Dallon's mouth was true, for even as I looked at her face, sullen as she nibbled at her ice cream, I was not thinking of her face.

I was, in fact, thinking of her derriere.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to see your panties. But, as a man…”

“If you say something like ‘I can never forget them’, or ‘they were absolutely the highlight of my day’, it’s just proof that I’m right.”

I flinched at her words as if it was a physical blow to my person. She was absolutely wrong on this point. Personally, it is something I can take as an absolute fact. Seeing the underthings of a superhero - particularly a girl of my own age - would give me absolute bragging rights to anyone I spoke to them about. 

Not that I spoke to many people, really. Panacea was definitely right about at least one thing; I am, in fact, a loser who has nothing but girls on his mind.

“I won’t tell anyone?” I offered, tilting my head as I took a bite of the ice cream. “Even if it was the absolute highlight of my day. The pinnacle of my life. A moment that I will treasure until my dying breath. I just won’t say a word about it.”

She looked at me, suspiciously. “When you say things like that I definitely don’t believe you’ll keep it to yourself. It makes you sound like a demon, except you only lust after teenage girls.”

“As a teenage boy, I’m absolutely certain that I’m allowed to lust after teenage girls.”

“As a teenage girl, I’m absolutely certain that all teenage boys are disgusting.”

I inclined my head in defeat. In a way, Panacea was not wrong. There is absolutely nothing I can say to convince her otherwise. As a teenage boy, I could indeed be lavished with accolades if I’d had anyone to brag about seeing her panties to. Alas, I did not.

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t have any friends to tell about it.”

“If it’s any consolation, having my underwear seen by someone with no friends is even worse then if someone who would have shouted it from the rooftops saw them.”

Now I began to sulk, as Panacea smugly smiled at me. Ahhh, that one hurt you know? I’m definitely not your ordinary protagonist character, who can just shrug off demonization of my person by a cute girl without even sulking! I’m not like that all! Seriously, how do you expect me to react to a scenario like this!? It’s totally unfair to me! The balance of power is all out of whack!

“Maybe I’ll just shout it from the rooftops then,” I said, folding the trash from my ice cream cone into a square. I then stood up, cupping my hands around my mouth.

“I SAW PANACEA’S PANTIES WHEN I WAS CROSSING THE STR-”

A lunge.

A fall.

A glare from a girl on top of me.

“That’s definitely not what I meant, and you know it.”

“I’m just trying to appease you in the only way I know how.”

“You’re really warped, you know that?”

She moved off of me, and I sat up. We both watched the cars pass by, me from the ground, and her as she leaned against the railing of the bridge. She smiled at me, and I turned away, unable to hide the flush in my cheeks. Panacea was seriously cute. It’s absolutely impossible to describe her in any other way. 

Of course, I would never have a crush on a superheroine, even if she was one of the cutest people I’d ever seen in my life. It’d be entirely ridiculous, right? For one, I’m totally average in every way. Even looking at a superhero is like something out of a dream, you know? There’s absolutely no way that anything would ever come of this.

“Sorry,” I said. “I just can’t think of another way to apologize.”

She paused for a moment, looking at me. Seriously looking at me. I could feel a chill run up my spine as I realized that this was, in fact, Panacea who I had been speaking with.

“Do you have any friends at all?” 

The words left her mouth way too quickly, and I looked away. Someone like me doesn’t really have many friends. It’s not from a lack of trying, or because I don’t want any. It’s just because I’m not the type of person that many people want to make friends with. 

“...Do you want to be friends with me, then?” 

She said the words as quiet as a mouse, and I looked at her. This time, she wasn’t looking at me, instead staring out over the bridge at the water underneath it, the stick of ice cream dangling in her hand. She turned to me with a bitter smile on her face, and laughed.

“I don’t have many friends, either. It’s mostly just people Victoria knows. Everyone wants something from me, you know? I’m the ultimate healer. The end-all of the end-alls to any problems. ‘Panacea, can you make me see better?’ ‘Panacea, can you heal my father?’ ‘Panacea, why did you let me sister die?’ It’s endless. I’m surprised you didn’t want anything from me.”

I scratch the back of my head. I don’t really know how to reply to Panacea. It’s a difficult situation to be in. I extend a hand to her, hesitant.

“Koyomi Araragi. I go to Arcadia.”

She smiled, leaning against the bridge railing, arching an eyebrow at me. Seriously, this is really awkward, you know? I’ve never taken the first step like this before, come on! It’s not like this is the first chapter of an inevitably dropped serialized work where the author’s trying to hook the audience into his ruse that he’ll definitely continue updating! I’m just trying to make a friend!

“Seriously? You go to Arcadia? You’re definitely not in any of my classes. I’d remember someone as ridiculous as you.”

Wow, that hurts. Panacea’s seriously warped.

“I don’t talk to others very much,” I said in response. “So I’m pretty bad at it. Nobody I know has died. Nobody I know is terminally ill. I’m as fit as you could expect of any teenage boy.”

“And what’s stopping you from begging me for help when you get hurt? When you scrape your knees and need someone to fix it? When your sister falls down and breaks her leg?”

“Ahhh, I think they’ll be fine, right? The human body can fix itself in almost any situation.”

She looked at me. And then she burst out laughing. I’d never heard Panacea laugh before, on videos, at school, or even when I saw her while visiting a friend in the hospital. She was almost unnaturally quiet, most of the time.

She took my hand, and made a face. My hands must be really dirty, then.

“Absolutely zero. You don’t even dream of becoming a superhero, do you? You’re just absolutely normal in every single way.”

“Yes,” I said. “I, Araragi Koyomi, am a completely normal, totally ordinary, and absolutely irrelevant high school student.”

“Would you mind so terribly if we became friends?”

_ hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded _


	2. Cognition 1.2

I walked home more excited then I had been in years. I’d made a friend. A real, actual human being who wouldn’t mind my company. This was seriously something to celebrate. Of course I wouldn’t tell my family. They’d create horrible misunderstandings and try to sabotage it. So one thing was absolutely certain --

No matter what happened, my family could not know about my new friend. I had to hide Panacea from the terror that was my sisters at all costs.

I took a deep breath, and opened the door--

“I’m home.”

The house was quiet as I took off my shoes, and as I stepped up the stairs there was still no sound. This was the state of the Araragi household most of the time. Much like Panacea, there is absolutely nobody to save me from my solitude. On the fridge, there are four notes. 

_ Onii-chan, we’re going out crimefighting! _

_ Koyomi, please remember to do the dishes. _

_ Koyomi, we’ll be out late tonight. Money for food is on the table. _

_ Onii-chan, our crimefighting adventures are over, but we’re tired so we’re gonna take a nap. _

My little sisters have always had a very strong sense of justice. I think it comes from our mother being a police officer. I’m… not entirely sure what our father does, but I assume it’s work for the city. These were most definitely not joking notes. My little sisters are absolutely very serious crimefighters. They don’t have a name or anything, they just patrol the area around our neighborhood, and tell the ABB to knock it off if they’re being too loud. I’m surprised they’ve gotten away with it for this long but…

I don’t have the heart to tell them it’s a bad idea. I don’t want to crush such beautiful dreams so meaninglessly.

I go to my room, and sit down at my desk, reaching to put my bag on the table -

\-- only to realize there is no bag in my hand.

I forgot my reference books.

And my dirty book.

In my excitement at making a friend, I had completely crushed my chances of passing my math test. I sulked briefly at my desk, staring at it moodily. Taking out my phone, a small smile crossed my lips as I saw the name that had been entered in it.

_ Amy Dallon. _

My friend. Araragi Koyomi’s friend. That’s such an impossible sounding occurrence, right? Straight out of a comic or something. A superhero becoming friends with someone as uninteresting and normal as I am? It’s totally ridiculous.

I start to type something to her.

Then I stop.

I start again.

Then I stop.

It continues in this manner for a while. I’m beginning to realize that unlike my sisters, I have absolutely no frame of reference for how to text another person. It’s something completely out of the ordinary for me. I sigh, standing up. I’ve realized exactly what I have to do, as annoying as it is. With the pretext of replacing my reference books, I, Araragi Koyomi, am going to purchase a young adult novel. 

Young adult novels are seriously amazing. They give you a real insight into what it’s like to be an ordinary high school student in an extraordinary situation. Reading one can give you insights into how to talk to girls! Or make friends! Or even how to become a hero!

I’m getting worked up just thinking about the power of young adult novels. There are some real works of art out in the world that people just don’t bother with, because they’re tagged like that. Ahhh, I can’t wait to get really deep into the adventures of some ordinary people with just one thing different about them.

Standing up, I grab my jacket again and prepare to head to the bookstore. It’s a bit of a walk, but I enjoyed walking. I used to bike more often, it’s just that when it’s only ten minutes at most, there’s no real point, you know? It’s just a total waste of energy to bike when you could otherwise walk.

I open the door, and the wind cuts through my jacket like it’s not even there. It’s not a good day to be out in the Bay, but I don’t really have a choice, do I? I’ll absolutely embarrass myself in front of Panacea if I fail a test the day after we became friends. I pull my jacket a bit closer around me as I start walking. I didn’t bother grabbing my bike, I wasn’t going far enough.

Brockton was quiet at night, at least in my district. There wasn’t really much crime here, even though the city’s a hotbed for it. Sure, you see ABB lurking around every now and then, but the territory around our neighborhood is mostly free of serious crime. For the most part, gang members are just another part of the neighborhood. I haven’t seen one of the gangs actually try anything in months. I never really thought about why, but meeting a real superhero made me frown as I passed by a corner store, the clerk snickering at something on his phone. There was no reason for my part of the city to be so much quieter than the rest, right? It’s really unnatural. I ignored it and kept walking.

The owner of the bookstore and I exchanged polite conversation. I picked up a dirty book about short, brown haired girls who looked too tired.

…

It had absolutely nothing to do with Panacea. Definitely not. Seriously, you’d have to be crazy to have a crush on someone like that. While I may be a loser, I’m definitely not insane enough to try to date someone like Panacea. Glory Girl would crush me like an ant. A tiny, perverted ant with lewd intentions on her sister. Which I absolutely do not have.

Here is a fact: for every two reference books you buy, you must buy one dirty book. Even if that dirty book has a girl on the cover who looks similar to your only friend. It’s simply a man’s agreement, and when I went to the counter with my purchases, he gave me a look amongst men, and nodded, saying without words that we were brothers. He even gave me a discount on my young adult novel, even if he did arch his eyebrows at the title.

“The other stuff made you look like you had taste, Araragi,” he said. “This is…”

“It’s for my sister. She loves the series,” I lied through my teeth as I looked at the cover of A Magician’s Guide To Surviving High School, where a brown haired boy held up some sort of science wand towards the sky as it collected lightning. A girl held onto him in awe.

The book’s back said that the hero was a serious loner, and without the help of the girl next to him he’d never have made any friends. It’s the perfect reference book for someone like me, a person with one friend who can help me make more friends.

“If you say so, Araragi,” the man said, handing me my book. “Excellent taste as usual. But I thought you liked class rep types?”

I nodded. “A class rep type is something to really be admired. Glasses, the figure, the smarts - they’re definitely the all-around package. But shorter girls are seriously cute too, you know? They’re a different kind of breed, but they’ve got the same kind of determination and hot-bloodedness that makes a class rep type so quintessential.”

“Yes, but unlike shorter girls, class rep types are seriously stacked, you know? They’ve got a little bit of everything that makes them a higher rarity then another type. The glasses, the figure, the smarts - those are some S Rank stats there, Araragi. How could a shorter girl compete with that sort of thing?”

I paused, thinking it over. I couldn’t comprehend why Panacea was so stuck in my head, or why I would buy a dirty book of girls that looked like her instead of class rep types. How could a shorter girl compete with someone who outclassed them in so many ways?

“Passion.”

“Passion?"

“Passion. Short girls are seriously passionate about things they care about, right? Like, disturbingly passionate to the point where you hope they calm down. That’s something you would never see in an S-tier class rep type. A class rep type wouldn’t have such a blatant flaw! It would be something simple and cute like ‘she can’t cook very well’, or ‘she’s not good at studying’! Not something as obvious as ‘cares too deeply about random things’, or ‘socially awkward in a crowd'!”

I’m getting worked up. I take a deep breath, looking at the cashier before me. Tell me, King of Books, do you have enough lewds in stock?

He chuckled, and waved me away. I left without further conversation with a wave of a hand, having passed another test to allow myself access to the dirty and adult book side of this bookstore. It’s a bit ridiculous that I have to justify my purchases to him every time, but it absolutely wins out over not being able to purchase dirty books at all any day of the week. 

It’s cold out on the streets. I shivered a bit. 

_ “..lp m..” _

One of the rules of Brockton Bay was to never follow voices that you couldn’t find the source to. Actually that was just a general rule that you should follow all the time. Masters are pretty dangerous, you know? They can control almost anything, in any amount, at any time. It’s kind of scary.

_ “...elp… me…” _

I shouldn’t follow the voice. There’s seriously no reason for me to follow this voice. Just because someone’s there doesn’t mean I have to listen. I turned to leave.

“..._ Help me…” _

I turned back to the stairwell, and started walking down. I could feel my heartbeat hammering in my throat. I shouldn’t be here. I should leave. 

“_ Help me!” _

I kept walking down the stairs, my feet tapping on seemingly endless steps before a seemingly endless walkway appeared, heading below the bridge that was overhead. I barely absorbed any of it, as my eyes flicked down, and saw the sticky, wet red that coated the steps. I knew it immediately, even as my feet kept moving down.

It was blood.

_ “Please, help me!” _

It felt like an hour of walking before I saw her. A blonde woman, with an enormous bust, and some sort of gothic lolita dress, leaning against a wall. She looked up at me, and blood coated her lips with a sort of sad smile on it. She looked at me, and I looked at her.

She didn’t have any limbs.

Every single spot on her body where her limbs would be was a void.

I stumbled back, before pulling out my phone, and then hesitating. I didn’t want to call Panacea for something like this. I’m just an ordinary high school student after all. Nobody I know has died. Nobody I know has a terminal illness. From a logical standpoint, the value of my happiness and unhappiness could be said to be the same.

I put the phone away. The woman arched an eyebrow. It’s not that I’m not shocked by her complete lack of limbs, its that I can’t begin to comprehend it. Beyond that, this is Brockton Bay. This is Earth Bet. I’m not your ordinary two-bit protagonist character, you know! I can handle something seriously dangerous, even if its something like this, okay?!

“You were asking for help?”

She smiled. “Not going to asketh about mine own limbs?”

“I can’t do anything for you if they’ve been misplaced, sorry. I don’t carry around Panacea in my back pocket.”

“I wast careless,” she replied as an answer to a question I hadn’t asked. “I thought he’d beest weaker. In earnest, one hunter for me? Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade? I thought it a jest at first.”

She laughed.

It looked bizarre without any limbs.

“I require aid. Wouldst thee mind helping me?”

She smiled. It was all teeth. Pointed, sharp teeth. I smiled back.

In my entire life, I have never once had a reason to be considered anything other than a corpse that happens to move.

“You’re dead, aren’t you?”

“I’ve been dead for a long time,” she replied, eyes smiling. “I’ve been dead since before thee took thy first breath, and I’ll be dead long after thee breathes thy last.”

In my entire life, I have never once seen a corpse that happens to move that isn’t named Araragi Koyomi.

“But if you’re dead, how can you breathe? How can you speak? How can you move?”

She blinked. “Obviously, because I am a vampire.”

In my entire life, I have never once discovered any reason for me to exist. My sisters are more loved by my family. My schooling is irrelevant to me. I don’t have any friends. I don’t have any enemies, either.

“I’m a human,” I said, for lack of anything else to reply with. She laughed, and it was like bells.

“Of course thou art. And you’re still going to help a monster? Thou art still going to risk thy life for something as terrifying as me?”

“I’m barely human at all, honestly. My existence is unnecessary. My life has no purpose. I’m just a corpse that happens to walk.”

“How ironic. I am also a corpse that happens to walk.”

We both smiled. I knelt before the limbless corpse, and spoke to it, one corpse to another.

“When I weigh the effects of my death versus my life, I’ve found that my death often has more positives than negatives. That my heart has no purpose but to pump blood into my veins. When weighed, my life has less value than anyone else I know.”

She was quiet for a moment, as I paused, looking at our surroundings. A vampire and a human, and we first met underneath a bridge near a man-made river. I could even see the trash people had thrown in throughout the day coasting through.

“So if you really are a vampire, and I really am a human, then take it.”

I stretch my head to the side, craning my neck.

“Take… it?”

“My blood. All of it. Give my death a purpose that my life never had. Let me save you, so that there is at least one remainder of ‘Araragi Koyomi’ on this world, Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade.”

Was she crying? I couldn’t tell.

All I saw was her body move towards me, and I barely had a chance to wrap my arms around it before all there was was pain and darkness.

_ hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded _


	3. Cognition 1.3

I woke in pain. 

Let me rephrase that.

I woke in mild discomfort. Sort of like this constant feeling of an itch you can’t scratch. I woke under a dumpster, which probably didn’t help. Seriously , was last night some sort of fever dream or something? I reached out with my hand to crawl out from under the dumpster. My hand promptly caught fire. I withdrew it.

What the hell? People don’t just catch on fire. It’s definitely not something that happens in broad daylight.

I decided to check my phone, and groaned as I looked at the time. I’d totally missed school, completely and utterly. It wasn’t as if my parents would care, but I took pride in my never skips, never late status. This took away some of that pride. I had messages, though. That was new. My sisters never bothered to text me, because I never bothered to reply. My parents…

Let’s not talk about them.

_ Panacea _ _  
_ _ Where are you? _

_ Araragi _ _  
_ _ I’m under a dumpster. _

_ Panacea _

_ Just because people treat you like human garbage doesn’t mean you have to live up to it, Araragi. _

Hey, that hurts, you know? I didn’t do anything to deserve such statements. 

_ Araragi _

_ When I stop being human garbage I become a human torch. _

_ Panacea _

_ You’re ten thousand light years away from being that attractive, Araragi. _

_ Araragi _

_ No, I literally catch on fire. _

_ Panacea _

_ There’s no way that a human being can gsjkahgsdfaknsfgmxcoisjgi saertj kssdaa _

It seems that Panacea had a mental breakdown at the impossibilities of my situation. As such, she is unable to help me in this scenario.

I tried to move the dumpster. It didn’t move. I was trapped under here for the forseeable future. I put my hand out from underneath it again, wondering if anything had changed.

I pulled my hand back after watching it burn for a few seconds. It’s seriously incredible, how fast the flames appear and disappear. Is this a parahuman power? What a useless power I’ve been gifted. ‘The ability to catch on fire and feel incredible pain for several seconds when under sunlight.’

...Hey isn’t this a really dangerous situation? I’m a parahuman who can’t leave the confines of ‘beneath the dumpster’. Anyone could find me right now, you know? Well, they’ll probably just think of me as some homeless vagrant who chose the best place he could find to sleep, but this isn’t a good look for the future. I’m in serious danger here. There’s a really high chance that anyone in the nearby area could uncover me and I wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop them.

Someone’s kicking the dumpster.

I peeked out and see feet covered in sandals. A man knelt down, put an unlit cigarette into his mouth and didn’t light it.

“Maa maa, Araragi-san. You look to be in a bit of a predicament,” he said, then smiled like a shark, his hawaiian shirt a bit too large for him. “Did something good happen?”

“There’s no way this situation could be called good,” I replied, suspicious. “Why aren’t you lighting your cigarette?”

“It’s so that way fan-artists have a really easy sketch prepared. Not lighting my cigarette lets them draw me without having to worry about the smoke. Also, there are kids around, Araragi-san. I can’t smoke around them, you know?”

“That doesn’t even make any sense. Apologize to every smoker in the world.”

“Maa, they should quit while they’re ahead. Even if quitters never win, a person who quits can always beat someone dedicated to the wrong path."

He sucked in a drag of his unlit cigarette. 

"You're not human."

"Was I really ever?" 

He didn’t reply, instead looking at me as I stayed beneath the dumpster, and sighing. He sounded really aggrieved by my declaration of inhumanity, even though I was always far closer to being a corpse than a human.

“You can’t just throw away your humanity like that, Araragi-san,” he finally said, smoking a cigarette that remained unlit. “It’s not good for you, you know? Don’t you want to fix it?”

I paused, thinking it over. Without my humanity, I couldn’t attend school. I couldn’t see Panacea, or my family, or anyone else ever again. I weighed it in my mind, before smiling.

“Isn’t that totally fine? I’ll be the minion of Kiss-Shot until the day I die.”

He looked at me.

I looked at him.

He threw away his cigarette with a laugh. 

“Well said, Araragi-san. Now let’s get you out from under that dumpster. It’s not cool to stand up girls, you know?”

_ hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded _

“Heeeey!”

The first words I heard upon entering the abandoned building that the man had converted into a workshop were cheerful beyond any reasonable belief. And the person attached to them was about the same height as my sisters, waving cheerfully with a blonde head and a smile on her face. Red eyes pierced through my soul, and I raised a hand as I smiled.

“Yo.”

Kiss-Shot punched me in the arm, and glared at me. I didn’t really know what I’d done wrong, until she grabbed it and inspected my hand, before dropping it with a sigh.

“You’re not really clever, are you, Araragi Koyomi? Even though I, the great Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, the hot-blooded cold-blooded iron-blooded vampire, have made you my minion, you immediately tried to kill yourself.”

Neither of us mentioned my request. Not in front of this person we didn’t know, who watched us while leaning back in a schoolchair. Hey, wait, isn’t that seriously dangerous? You could break your neck doing stuff like that, you know? Don’t give our readers bad influences! You already smoke, can’t you tone down the rest of the stuff?!

“Stop breaking the fourth wall, Araragi-san,” the man said, the chair clanking down as he spoke. “The name’s Oshino Meme, and you two are in quite a bit of trouble.”

We looked at each other. Why would be in trouble?

“See, there’s a delicate balance in Brockton Bay, you know? Lung watches the district. The district watches the city. The city watches Lung. Parahumans and the supernatural…”

He pulled out a lighter and lit his cigarette. It would look really cool once this was animated.

“Don’t mix at all. That’s the only reason nobody ever tries to go deeper in your district, you know? Maa, but with you two now, there’s going to be serious consequences.”

“Consequences?” Kiss-Shot said with a haughty tone, leaning against my stomach. “Whatever for? My minion declared himself for me. He is mine until the day life leaves both of our eyes.”

That was definitely true. I could feel a mental link in the back of my skull, that told me where Kiss-Shot was, and she nudged it back. I jolted and looked at her. She smiled.

I tried not to blush, and succeeded.

“Maa, that’s great and all, but you two are seriously way stronger than the rest of the supernatural occurrences in the area. You’ll attract more. They’ll come. You’ll kill them. Hunters will figure it out. They’ll come. You’ll kill them. The PRT will get involved, because even _ Lung _can’t cover up five deaths before they find out. This isn’t a good look for either of you, you know?”

I shivered, already knowing in my gut it was true. There was absolutely no way for either of us to go undetected for long. 

Especially with the way my phone was buzzing.

“So, I’ve got an idea for the two of you. It’s a fight, a fight.”

“A fight?” Kiss-Shot asked, tilting her head. “Between who?”

“Your minion,” he said, pointing at me. “and the hunter who cut off all your limbs. If he can prove that he can beat even that sort of existence, then Lung will back off. The PRT won’t figure it out. And you two can be free to stay in Brockton forever.”

I frowned, already finding a problem in the plan. What if we just left? Oshino laughed at my face, waving his hand as I glared at him.

“Sorry, sorry, but your face is seriously an open book. I’m not reading your mind or anything, it’s just obvious to me,” he said smiling, before his face turned serious. “You can’t run away from a hunter with your master’s limbs. They respond to her. They’re part of her power. She needs them or she’ll begin to fade away.”

Oh. Then I really can’t just leave it alone, can I? I have to fight. I looked at Kiss-Shot, who blinked up and me warily, before nodding.

“Okay.”

“Seriously? That’s it? Okay?” Kiss-Shot looked at me, confused. “You’re totally fine with risking your life for mine? We just met you know.”

“That’s fine.”

“I might not even go back to being that onee-san you liked so much. I might stay like this forever.”

“I’ll manage.”

“You’ll never get to see anyone you care about again. You’ll live in a world of darkness, separate from the light of parahumans. You’ll be in the supernatural for the rest of your natural and unnatural life.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“Uggggggh, you’re so hard to deal with! You’re nothing like my last minion, you know?!” She shook her hand in my face, glaring up at me. “He brought me new toys _ all the time! _He would laugh at me when I was angry, and play jokes on me when I was sad! You can’t just agree to everything, alright?! You have to have some opinions of your own!”

She made an annoyed sound, and stalked away from me. Throwing me glares the entire time as she walked in circles around desks, I shifted my attention back to Oshino.

“Who took Kiss-Shot’s limbs?” 

He looked at me, and I shivered a bit. Those eyes… They weren’t kind eyes, or smiling eyes. He was really serious about this. Dangerously so. Then he smiled and leaned back in the chair again, smoke drifting from his lips.

“Alabaster. Empire 88 cape. Every 4.3 seconds he resets to his ‘default state’. Totally ordinary combat stats for a human. Honestly, if it was a parahuman fight this would be a complete stomp, Araragi-san. Your stats are so much higher than his right now it’s ridiculous.”

I blinked. “So what’s the problem?”

“You’re not a parahuman, Araragi-san. You’re a vampire. He’ll know you’re Kiss-Shot’s disciple in an attosecond at most. The limbs are probably already vibrating to inform Kiss-Shot of her newest subordinate. And the instant you ask for them, he’ll absolutely drop the pretense of being ‘Alabaster, the distractable’, and become ‘Weiss, the magician’. A magician is strongest when his capacity is full, right? His capacity resets every 4.3 seconds. Even if magic and parahuman abilities don’t mix, it doesn’t matter when your body resets to default every 4.3 seconds. Weiss is one of the most dangerous magicians on the turnside of the world. Breaking contracts with powers is seriously insane, Araragi-san, and he does it casually.”

Kiss-Shot jolted at that, and Oshino looked at me, the smoke dangling around his face, before rubbing his eyes. “Even she gets it, Araragi-san. Breaking a contract is dangerous, but he _ isn’t breaking them. _He isn’t ‘contracting with a power and then breaking it”, he’s ‘wiping the slate of his existence so clean it’s as if the contract was never made in the first place.’”

I thought idly about breaking my contractual unlife with Kiss-Shot. Something crawled into my soul and stabbed at it as I did so, and I quickly banished the thought from my mind.

“Do you understand how dangerous this person is? He hunted Kiss-Shot, alone. He took her limbs, alone. He let her live, alone. Can you match him, blow for blow? Can you beat him, Araragi-san?”

I thought it over. It was hard to decide immediately if I could defeat him. It was made harder when a blonde head popped underneath me, pointing at my face, and a glare that almost matched Panacea’s looked at me.

“I’ve got it! If you win, I’ll make you a human again! So do your best, okay?”

I laughed, scratching the back of my head. Seriously, how likely is it that I would make more friends after I died then before?

“Even if all your limbs are cut off, they’ll grow back! If your head is crushed, it’ll be fixed! If your heart stops working, it doesn’t even matter! You’re the scion of the strongest supernatural existence in the world! You’re not just Araragi Koyomi, you know?”

She clenched her fist, glaring at me with determination.

“You’re _ my _minion! The Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade has declared to you that you will be victorious, and return with my limbs and the heads of my foes under your arm! So go, Araragi Koyomi! Kill Alabaster! Reclaim my limbs! And show this city that the two of us are most certainly not going anywhere anytime soon!”

_ hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded _


	4. Cognition 1.4

_ “Mmm, onii-chan? Is that you?” _

I felt bad about doing this, but I didn’t really have any other options. “Yeah, it’s me.”  
  
_ “Seriously, onii-chan!? You totally vanished! Okaa-san would have freaked out if she-” _

“Had noticed, yeah,” I replied, cringing at the frustration in my little sister’s voice. Little sisters are a serious danger to a superpowered person. Even if now I apparently have the strength to cut buildings in two, either of my little sisters could absolutely defeat me in under a second. She’d barely even have to try. “I need a favor.”

_ “Muuu! Rejected! Absolutely rejected! Onii-chan can’t get a favor unless onii-chan does me a favor!” _

“You don’t have to tutor anyone for another three days,” I countered. “I’ll walk your students home one time.”

_ “Two times.” _

“Three times.”

_ “Seven times! Fifteen times! Onii-chan gets absolutely no favors from a little sister whose stomach went unanswered last night!” _

I sighed. This was going to be more difficult than I thought. When Karen got a serious thought in her head she rarely let it go. This wasn’t the time for this, though. I really needed to get going before the sun came up again.

“Look Karen, I just need to know if any Empire 88 events are happening tonight.”

_ “Omigosh is onii-chan trying to become a crimefighter like his adorable little sisters? You’ll get seriously hurt, you realize that, right?” _

“I’m not going to fight them,” I lied, like a villain. I’d feel ashamed of lying to my sister, but I had plenty of time to despair over my own decisions later. I was a bit busy at the moment, especially with needing to set up this fight or get kicked out of the city. “I’ve just got a friend who’s getting deeper into it, so I want to make sure he doesn’t get in danger.”

_ “...Onii-chan, you don’t have any friends.” _

Wow, Karen. This is really not the time for you to disparage my character like that. While I, Araragi Koyomi, may have at one point been totally friendless, I now have three friends. That’s a 300% increase in my friendships in under a single day. I’m seriously on a tear right now. I can basically befriend anyone.

“I have three friends.”

_ “Wooooow, onii-chan that’s some serious progress in under three days since I last checked your phone’s contact lists! Good job!” _

Karen, that’s invasion of privacy, you know? Our mom’s a police officer, right? She instilled values of justice and obeying the law into you, didn’t she?

“Thanks. Are there any events around?”

_ “Mmm, I’d have to check with Tsukihi first. She’s always super in tune with what’s going on in the underworld. Aren’t you japanese, though? Are you seriously going to look for Nazis?” _

“We were allies on Earth Aleph, so it’s fine.”

I waited patiently for Karen to get back to me, as I stared off the edge of a skyscraper. Seriously, these things are still around? Don’t we have a dragon man that grows larger the more angry he gets? Isn’t anyone worried about collateral damage?

The cars below were like ants. Tiny lights shimmering back and forth. 

_ “So, there’s some sort of recruitment thing going on? It’s over by the Docks, you could go check that out, I guess?” _

“Alright, thanks.”

_ “Seriously onii-chan, you have to be really care-” _

I hung up. I didn’t need Karen to tell me to be careful. I mean, I literally can’t die. Even if I fell off this skyscraper, I would walk it off like it’s nothing. The only reason Kiss-Shot can’t just regenerate her limbs is because Alabaster cut them off with a binding concept of sealing. One by one, until he found her under the bridge, just where I did.

And he had just smiled before walking away. 

...Am I really going to try to fight this guy? Alabaster sounds crazy dangerous. I mean, I may not be just an ordinary human anymore, but does being Kiss-Shot’s minion actually give me the kind of clout to throw around that she says it does? There’s no way, right?

My phone buzzed. I pulled it out again, and had a text.

_ Panacea _

_ Oh Araragi, I love you! _

_ Araragi _

_ What? _

_ Panacea _

_ There’s no one else in the world for me! Only a person as totally ordinary and plain as you could ever do! _

_ Araragi _

_ Seriously, what? _

_ Panacea _

_ Please meet me tomorrow at 5:30 PM at the Wharf. I have designed only the most perfect daeztfgwsdxfhrcnjmvb, jnm, _

_ Panacea _

_ Ignore those. That was my sister. Sorry. _

_ Araragi _

_ Okay? _

That’s the second mental breakdown I’ve seen Panacea or her sister have over text in as little as 24 hours. This family is seriously dysfunctional.

_ Panacea _

_ Why weren’t you in school today? _

I stared over the edge of the building, watching my feet dangle below me. It fell down into an alleyway, and lights from the building criss crossed along the way, shining into the darkness.

_ Araragi _

_ I can’t talk to you anymore. I live in a world of darkness. _

Standing up, I could feel the wind whipping around me, trying to throw me off-balance as fast as possible so I would tumble to my demise. Can I really go to an Empire 88 meeting, as I am, and ask to see Alabaster? There’s absolutely no way that will work. So my answer is simple.

_ Panacea _

_ You’re nowhere near cool enough to say things like that, Araragi. I’m about to start my shift at the hospital, are you busy? _

I’ll just have to crush every form of opposition in my way until Alabaster appears. Cape fights happen all the time, right? I can just pretend to be a cape.

_ Araragi _

_ I can’t go out in the light. I can only exist in the shadows. _

I already have the basic outfit. And domino masks are littered over half the cities in the world, thanks to capes like Legend, Eidolon, and the like. There’s even one on the roof, how narratively convenient is that? If I didn’t happen to find it on the roof, I’d have to go buy one, and that would mean going to a store, and doing tons of meaningless tasks that nobody would really care about.

_ Panacea _

_ Let’s not make predictions. _

Looking over the edge of the building, I shivered. Was I really about to do this? I put on the mask, and if any blood still pumped in my veins, I would have heard it running through my ears.

_ Araragi _

_ ...If I did something stupid, would we still be friends? _

I dangled one of my feet off the ledge, balancing on my other as the wind whipped around me. If I couldn’t do something as simple as this, there’s no way I could ever catch Alabaster. This is the basics, right? Of being a superhero? 

_ Panacea_

_ You’re seriously an idiot. _

I took a step off the ledge, and fell through the air. The wind smashed against my face with such force it should have pulled back the skin, but instead I was completely fine. I didn’t feel any sensation of fear in my stomach, or any danger tingling up my spine. Every part of my body informed me that something like this wouldn’t even hurt me a little bit. 

_ Panacea _

_ Everyone I know does stupid things, and asks me to fix them, you know? _

My speed increased. Hey. Wait. Wasn’t this a really terrible idea? 

_ Panacea _

_ I can’t fix everything. But I can fix most things. _

Wouldn’t it hurt when I hit the ground? These floors were flying past me at six a second.

_ Panacea _

_ Even if someone’s in pieces, I can put them back together. Even if someone’s barely standing, I can make their heart beat again. _

I crashed into the alleyway with the force of a meteor. Blinking, I sat up, and looked at my arms. I was completely fine. Not even a scratch on any part of me. Even when I pinched at my skin to see if it was a dream I didn’t even feel the discomfort.

_ Panacea _

_ I’m not going to stop being friends with you just because you’re an idiot. _

Standing, I looked up at the building I’d just casually leaped off. My face blanched. Woah. Hey. That building’s way taller than I thought it was when I scaled the side of it. It’s insanely tall compared to what I thought it was.

_ Panacea _

_ And you can’t get rid of me as easily as by saying you live in darkness. That’s really twisted, right? To try to get rid of someone who's your friend. You’re not really good at friendship, are you Araragi? _

Moving my domino mask back into place, I walked out of the alleyway, checking the address that Karen had sent me on my phone. Karen, you really didn’t need to write “do your best onii-chan!”, on a screenshot of Google Maps. You definitely didn’t need to draw a frowny face and write “Try not to die, okay<3”. That’s super discouraging.

_ Araragi _

_ You’re right, sorry. _

The Docks were about 20 minutes walk from here. If I used rooftops, it would probably be faster. But I had time, it’s not as if they were all going to clear out before I got there, right? It wasn’t as if I needed to be there _ right now, _but sometime before the event would be nice. 

_ Araragi _

_ I’ll apologize to all the trash in the world for assuming that I was at a higher level then it was. _

I kept walking, and then stumbled as I ran into someone, I was about to mumble an apology, but instead someone just thrust a flier into my hands and I peered at it for a moment.

** _MISSING_ **

** _Call (XXX) XXX-XXXX or (XXX) XXX-XXXX if you have information! $100 reward!_ **

It was a picture of a pretty red-headed girl, smiling wide and giving the person who took the picture a thumbs-up. One of her arms was around a plain looking girl with brown hair and glasses. Glancing behind me, I could see the outline of whoever I’d run into continuing onwards, thrusting fliers into anyone whose hands were even slightly outstretched.

I’d heard about the string of disappearances, but I’d never had anyone give me a flier. Nobody from our neighborhood ever disappeared, anyways.

...Wait, what’s up with my neighborhood? Mom? Where did you get us to move? Just because your ‘super hunky childhood best friend’ lives here doesn’t mean we need to! You’re married! Dad just chuckled when you started talking about him, too! Hey Dad, react with a little more jealousy, okay!? Don’t let her go over to his house to cook him dinner! 

_ Panacea _

_ How about you apologize to me first. I’ll be at the hospital for the next nine hours. _

I was almost at the Docks, already. I looked at the message. I hesitated. I wanted to help Kiss-Shot, but I also wanted to remain friends with Amy Dallon. Was that selfish of me? To want to have some semblance of humanity in my unlife? I didn’t think it was.

_ … _

Unfair.

This was really unfair, wasn’t it? I had just made a friend, and then I get into some weird supernatural thing that I can’t tell her about because it’s so dangerous? Can I even go visit her or anything? I can’t even walk around in the sun! How am I going to attend classes!? My family even knows I’m not dead, so I can’t just skip forever! It’s only because today’s Friday that nobody cares at all! Half of Arcadia barely bothers to show up on Friday!

I stuck my hands in my pockets and pulled my hood up. It was a bit cold, and I was seriously grateful I had decided to wear my jacket outside. I couldn’t decide whether to visit Panacea or help Kiss-Shot. I can’t do both, can I? I can only do one or the other. Even as my feet moved me towards the Docks, my mind was all the way across the city in the hospital. There isn’t an ending where everyone can be happy, is there?

_ Araragi _

_ I can’t. I’m sorry. _

The smell of the Docks arrived before they did themselves. Interestingly enough, poverty smells like blood and ash to my newfound nose. It’s a pretty weird scent to come by, but my mind automatically connected the two to equal poverty. Kiss-Shot, what is wrong with your minion? There’s no reason for those two to mean poverty, right? Does depression smell like the inside of a casino to you?

_ Araragi _

_ I’ve gotten mixed up in some things. I don’t want to involve you, so I’m going to avoid you instead. _

The warehouse was ridiculously easy to find. It basically screamed ‘totally non-descript in every way’, and had people all around it keeping an eye out for anyone who might try something. It was kind of embarrassing, how little the Empire seemed to care about keeping their activities out of the spotlight. Seriously, the PRT still exists, you know? If it took my sisters this little time to find you out, how long is it going to take them? Can’t you keep your gang activities a little more clandestine?

“Hey,” I called out, holding up a hand to one of the guards. “Do you know if my friend’s around?”

He looked at me for a moment, before grunting, shifting the gun he was holding into a more comfortable position that wasn’t pointed directly at my chest. “You should get out of here.”

“Yeah, yeah, but I really need to see him. He took something important from me before he left.”

_ Araragi _

_ I’m not in any real danger, so don’t worry. _

“He took something from you?” The man glared at me this time, eyeing me up and down. “There’s no way that anyone in there took anything from you, okay? You’re really not worth the time it would take to rob.”

Hey, that kind of hurts. I’m a pretty dangerous guy, right?

“That’s fair. But even so, if you see him, could you give him a message from me?”

The man shrugged his shoulders, chuckling a bit. “Sure, kid. I’ll give your friend your message.”

I smiled, bright and wide. “Good.”

_ Araragi _

_ There’s absolutely nothing on this planet that can really hurt me, so it’s fine, right? _

My arm moved like a whip. Before any of them could react, I had a hand around the man’s throat, and my teeth elongated like knives. I could feel _ everything _ that was around me, the hairs rising on my skin, the shivers of the men in front of the warehouse, the bloodlust from those inside. This wasn’t a good place. It certainly wasn’t a recruitment drive.

“Alabaster stole from us. He won’t get a second chance, you know? Just tell him that I’m waiting for him at the Boat Graveyard.”

I dropped the man. He gasped, coughing for air. Everyone around me shifted nervously. I held up two fingers like a peace sign, and grinned.

“Tell him to bring what he stole, and there won’t be any more conflict. That’s totally fine, right?”

“Are… are you seriously messing with the Empire over some fucking _ books _he stole from you?!”

“No, not books. That’d be ridiculous. I’m looking for limbs.”

A beat passed through the world, almost like a black frame.

“Wait, what? Limbs?”

I realized too late that it’s going to sound absolutely ridiculous to anyone not in the know if I say Alabaster stole some limbs. Seriously, how do you even go about stealing limbs? That’s such a totally absurd concept. I shuffled back and forth, a bit embarrassed.

“Y-yes. He stole my master’s limbs.”

“Your master? Do you need help or something? Should I call the police?”

“Aren’t you a gang member?”

He waved his hands back and forth, looking at me. “Woah, hey, calm down. The Empire just pays way better than everyone else in the Bay, okay? I’m white, so naturally I joined them.”

“Naturally you joined the gang that beats up minorities?”

“Hey, I haven’t beaten up any minorities! All I do is guard buildings from intruders and make sure they don’t interrupt what’s happening inside!”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, tapping my foot on the ground. This was getting on my nerves, if I still had any. 

“Look, I just need you to tell Alabaster that I want the limbs returned.”

“_Return them? _They’re limbs, right? You can’t return limbs to someone without Panacea involved. And you’re definitely not with New Wave, either. Your costume’s super shoddy, too. It looks like you’re just wearing normal clothes and put on a domino mask. Are you really new to this?”

Hey! Don’t underestimate day one superheroes, okay?! We day ones can pack a serious punch, you know! It’s not like we’re so inept that getting into a fight immediately makes us drop our composure!

“My master can’t regenerate her limbs without them being there. It’s a weird power, okay?”

“I’ve never heard of anyone with that power in my life.”

I stomped my foot on the ground. A small crater formed below it, about an inch in diameter. Both me and the guard blinked, looking down.

“Woah, hey, this is private property. You’re destroying private property.”

“It’s _ gang property. _”

“We’re a privately operated gang.”

I just wanted to obliquely threaten someone into telling Alabaster I needed to see him, okay? Why did it devolve into this?

The other guard frowned, and hoisted his gun. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Wait, wait. Hold on. This is ridiculous, right? I’m supposed to the cape here, right? Why don’t I have any control over this situation? Why am I being dictated to even though I’m clearly the one with powers?

“I’m done with this conversation. Just tell Alabaster I’ll meet him in two hours.”

I walked away, and one of the guards patted the other one on the shoulder.

“Stellar job on getting him to leave, Dave. Seriously top-notch work.”

This is totally absurd, right? Like, this isn’t a real situation that happens. Why is the guard for the Empire 88 an ultra-normie? Please just be a normal Nazi so I can beat you up. It’s totally unnecessary for you to act this way, you know?

I left the warehouse. My phone was buzzing, but I didn’t bother to check it. I had some time to kill before the deadline I’d set, so I went to get food.

Let me rephrase that.

I can’t eat now, you know? The act of ‘consuming food for nourishment’ is simply something that’s no longer in my repertoire; one of the many downsides (or a possible upside) of becoming the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade’s minion. I still didn’t really know what to think about it. 

My phone buzzed.

I opened it.

_ Panacea _

_ Don’t be obstinate. I’m the perfect healer, right? Shouldn’t I be the first person you call when you’re in trouble? _

_ Araragi _

_ Wouldn’t that defeat the point of being friends, if I called you at the first sign of trouble? _

Panacea was weird. Is it really that surprising that I wouldn’t call anyone if I was in trouble? I mean, it’s not like I’ll get hurt, you know? I’m practically invulnerable. Even falling off that building didn’t leave a scratch on me. It’s honestly elementary to avoid getting into danger. Even just walking around, I can feel this sort of ludicrous energy rushing through my body. If I wanted to, I could run up the side of one of these buildings without even blinking.

It’s dangerous, right? To have this kind of power and no one to tell you how to use it. Is this how parahumans feel?

It’s melancholy, isn’t it? It’s definitely melancholy to have that kind of strength at your fingertips at all times. I could barely be bothered to talk to those two guards, they were just _ beneath _me in every way. It was tiresome to have to explain myself to them, when I could just as easily have imprinted commands on the inside of their retinas that they’d follow until death.

Hey.

Wait.

Kiss-Shot, isn’t being your minion affecting my mental state? How much is salmon roe to you anyways? This isn’t a good look, you know? I can already tell that this kind of energy is affecting me. I feel better than I have ever before in my (un)natural life. 

The Boat Graveyard isn’t as far away as you would think from the Docks. It’s actually pretty close, which makes sense since the Dockworkers all operate in the Docks. The city hasn’t bothered to clean it in the last… 15 years or so, I would say? It’s really out of shape at this point. There’s metal all over the place, discarded and broken ships out in the bay, and tons of materials for shipbuilding left out to waste. Realistically, the Boat Graveyard is more of a hazard to the city then a benefit.

Of course, that assumes capes don’t exist. The Boat Graveyard is the most visited cape destination in the entire city. I mean, really, you can’t walk fifteen feet without running into a tinker scrounging for supplies, a blaster or brute training, or a cape fight of some kind. It’s one of the most popular destinations in the entire city, for obvious reasons. A condemned place means only people who don’t want to be found visit it. Naturally, everyone steers away from the fights. That was part of my plan.

I needed to **** Alabaster in under 4.3 seconds. I needed to be able to tell time down to a hundredth of a second in order to defeat him in a fight. As Kiss-Shot’s minion, I’ve gained a ton of abilities that I don’t understand on any level, so I won’t use them. Any ‘skills’ I have are innate to the person that I am. So the answer becomes something altogether different - I need a certain kill move. A super special attack that can absolutely devastate an area.

Naturally, Kiss-Shot didn’t give me any of that, so I’m just going to have to improvise.

Finding a ship that had a good view of the area, I settled down, feeling the cold metal flush against my colder skin. And then I waited.

_hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded_


	5. Cognition 1.5

  


Tedious. Waiting is ridiculously tedious, okay? Hey, Alabaster? Please appear soon. I’m getting really bored over here and I don’t have any games installed on my phone, you know? Vampires read really fast, I’m already caught up on my Aleph comics and serialized novels! It’s only been an hour and I’ve cleared half my backlog! That’s some serious speed, but I’m getting really tired of waiting around!

I fiddled with my phone as I waited. I didn’t get any text messages, it was pretty late and Panacea was working. Also Panacea was the only person who ever texted me. Maybe Kiss-Shot would if she had a phone? But other then that I realistically don’t have any other people outside of my family with my phone number. It’s not that I’m the kind of person who makes your eyes glaze over when you look at him, it’s more that I’m the sort of person that creates an aura of ‘absolute weirdness’ that nobody wants to get involved in. It’s not that surprising, really - look what happened when I went to go buy a young adult novel. ‘I Went To Buy A Young Adult Novel And Now I’ve Become A Vampire?!’ - written by Reki Kawihara, releasing this fall. I’d definitely pick up a copy, then hide it from everyone out of sheer embarrassment of having purchased such a book.

My phone apps were not very good at fulfilling my boredom. I didn’t feel like reading, or watching anything. Instead, I browsed a popular webforum on my phone, not bothering to log in. 

…

It’s a pretty terrible post. Amazingly, there’s not a single redeeming feature about this post in any way. It’s one of the worst posts I’ve ever read in my entire life. I’d reply, but I don’t really want to log in, and it seems like a hassle to get into an internet argument. But why would anyone even try to argue that Myrddin could totally beat any parahuman in the world? He’s a third-stringer at best. There’s no realistic way for him to win in a fight with the top echelon. Although, if Myrddin had prep time, he could absolutely defeat at least one of them in a battle. And, now that I think about it, with enough preparation time, Myrddin could definitely defeat two. Woah, wait, is Myrddin actually secretly super cool? Is he a very serious hero? 

…

Nope, another burned building has been attributed to Myrddin. Please work on your collateral damage, Myrddin-san. It’s negatively impacting the Boston Protectorate budget.

I put my phone away, instead choosing to broodily stare into the distance as I sat on top of my ship. It wasn’t all that comfortable, but I didn’t expect a broken ship to be an excellent seat in the first place. Even scanning the area was boring me; there was someone foraging for parts, and that was either Leet or Squealer. In the distance, if I squinted, I could see what was probably a brute moving things around. One of their arms was larger than the other, but I’d seen weirder mutations. I’d been to Palanquin before.

Case 53s were seriously a weird breed. No memories, but plenty of mutations. Was this vampirism Kiss-Shot had given me a similar mutation? It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibilities, but I discarded the thought. Oshino had told me that parahumans and the supernatural don’t mix, and as such, I have to assume that the nature of what I’ve become is entirely supernatural.

Someone knocked on my ship, and I peered off the edge of it. Below me was a group of people, a girl in a skintight red bodysuit and a man wearing a bulletproof vest over a blood red shirt. Surrounding them were mob characters, all wearing the exact same thing. I frowned. These people were definitely not Alabaster. The man waved up at me, and I waved back. The girl slapped him on the arm and he gave her what would be an affronted look if I could see under his mask.

Ah.

Wait.

I do know who these people are, don’t I? It’s one of those things that’s totally obvious in hindsight, but at first glance you just think ‘hey, isn’t that the cape couple in Brockton Bay?’ Which presents its own issues - for one, there are _ multiple _cape couples in Brockton Bay, and each of them is simultaneously very well known and also not known at all. Like the weird rotating relationship Glory Girl had with someone from my school and Gallant. Seriously, Panacea, what’s wrong with your sister? She’s definitely two-timing one of them, right? Please get her the help she needs to be in a monogamous relationship! Not that I’m totally against open relationships or anything, it’s just that I’m pretty sure Gallant has no idea she’s dating someone from Arcadia as well! How’s he going to deal with that in his civilian identity!?

The duo motions to me more aggressively, so I jump off the ship, landing on the ground with unnatural grace that isn’t really befitting my character. We all look at each other for a moment, before the man kicks the ground in petulant disappointment.

“He’s absolutely talentless in every way,” he groused to the girl, who I could now see was wearing a skin-tight red bodysuit, and was definitely Othala. “I have never before met a person with absolutely no skills worth stealing. Even his ability to speak Japanese is adequate at best.

Woah, hey, is he really insulting my cultural heritage like that? I’m an excellent speaker of Japanese I’ll have you know. There is no content that I don’t comprehend in Japanese! It’s meaningless to insult me like that!

“Wait,” the man said, and if the girl was Othala, then he was clearly Victor. “He’s got one obscure skill that I might want.” 

“Oh?” Othala asked, tilting her head. “What is it?”

“He can look at a girl and make a terrible approximation of their three sizes as long as they’re under the age of-”

“I’m a gentleman, and most certainly not a lolicon, so I would appreciate it if you didn’t finish that sentence!” 

A beat passed, like a red frame.

“...I was going to say under the age of 25.”

Oh. I had totally misjudged Victor. My apologies, Victor-san. Even if you are a Nazi, I shouldn’t assume you would steal skills that would turn you into a degenerate. Unlike me, for I only appreciate the female form of women my own age.

“A-anyways, do you have the limbs?” I asked after a moment. Othala was looking at me with what I could definitely feel was disgust, even if I couldn’t see her eyes underneath the full face mask she had. Why does she wear an eyepatch anyways? She’s covered her entire face with her bodysuit! Isn’t it totally pointless to put on an eyepatch over that!? In any case, why would a cape wear an eyepatch at all! It doesn’t hide your identity even a little bit! Sure, thanks to Fleur’s death people take using secret identities way more seriously but how can you have a normal life if you’re just wearing an eyepatch as a mask!?

“Of course not,” Victor replied bluntly, cracking his knuckles. “When we asked him what he’d done to piss off a powerful cape, Alabaster informed us that he hadn’t done anything at all. There are no limbs.”

What?

Wait, seriously, what? I saw Kiss-Shot’s limbless form. She was definitely limbless right?

“No, that’s impossible. He absolutely has her limbs, okay?”

The man shrugged his shoulders, and Othala crossed her arms as she looked away.

“We felt that… while Alabaster may have wronged you, there would be no need for further violence. If you simply accept our offer of mutual cooperation, everyone would be much happier, no?”

Mutual cooperation? I’m Japanese, you know? Don’t you want to exterminate me?

“I can’t cooperate if I don’t have the limbs,” I replied, my eyes narrowing beneath the domino mask. “Please just return them and we can all pretend that we never saw each other.”

“I told you, he doesn’t _ have _any limbs.”

There was a breath in the conversation, as we all looked at each other in this weird triangle of glances. My mind raced to figure out why Alabaster would lie about something so simple as this. Isn’t he a criminal? Wouldn’t he brag about his crime to his cape friends?

Oh.

_ Of course. _

Alabaster can’t tell them anything at all about the limbs of Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade. Alabaster, the cape, is nowhere near as strong as Weiss, the magician. Why he never bothered to reveal his actual level is unclear to me, but nobody would believe that Alabaster had taken down someone as ridiculously strong as Kiss-Shot. I looked at the two before me, ignoring the mob characters behind them.

“...So, how would I go about speaking to him myself?”

Victor laughed, and it was surprisingly genuine.

“You’re not going to just waltz by every event we hold trying to find him are you? That’d be inconvenient for everyone involved. Just work with us, and you can meet him soon.”

Work with them?

_ Work with them? _

The audacity on display before me is ridiculous. I’m a minority, you know? Sure we asians may be ‘model minorities’ and all, but just because you ask me to work for you doesn’t mean I’m going to get down on my knees and praise your existence.

I smiled, and Othala flinched. 

“I don’t particularly like that deal,” I replied, cracking my neck. “Isn’t there any way to move up the time table?”

Victor grinned at me, absurdly pleased by this situation. He nodded once, then twice, and raised his hand in the air. All the men behind him did as well. And Othala, looking around bewildered, eventually did it herself.

I did as well, just to fit in.

** _“SIEG HIEL!”_ ** They all yelled.

“...” I replied.

Victor lowered his arm first, walking backwards with Othala through the mob characters. I blinked at the movement, and tilted my head.

“Hey, you can’t just leave! Aren’t we about to square off? Raise our fists? Exchange some friendly banter before the battle?” 

“Aren’t you a bit out of your league?” He said, turning his head over his shoulder and raising an eyebrow. “Your costume isn't even done. Those are just ordinary clothes and domino mask. You don’t even have any skills of value. 

Wait, did he take my Three Sizes Detector? I’d worked hard to develop that skill! I took a brief glance at Othala just to check. 34… 12… 26?

“You’re way off base, for one. That’s not even close to her actual sizes,” Victor said, making a face. “This is a seriously useless skill. How do you even go about developing something like this?”

I didn’t tell him about the hours of practice I had spent to perfect my hidden technique. Not because I was embarrassed, because as a man, I of course spend a large amount of time staring at women. No, I didn’t say a word.

This was because I had just remember Othala’s power. As they were walking through the crowd of mob characters, she had touched most of them, always giving them a thumbs up, and a murmured word that my newly hypersensitive ears could easily detect. Usually it was ‘good luck!’ or ‘do your best!’ but one guy got a ‘don’t give up!’ Woah, seriously Othala? He should absolutely give up immediately. Fighting’s pretty dangerous, you know? 

Victor grinned, a charming wide smile as he gave me a salute.

“See you in hell, new cape. Maybe you’ll find some limbs on the way down.”

He turned to leave.

This… this is a fight, isn’t it? I could feel the hair raising on the back of my neck. If my heart had still been beating, this would be where it pounds. I took a deep breath, to prepare myself for something I had never done before.

I am going to completely dominate the battlefield. I had seen Karen do it once or twice, and Armsmaster did it most of the time. Lung as well. But all three of those people were ordinary humans, in two cases with a parahuman power backing them up. But the tragedy of that scenario is that they were still, sadly human.

The mob characters began to move towards me, each experimenting with the new powers that Othala had gifted them. One began to fly, the other started creating flames, and the last two both cracked their knuckles and grinned.

Oh, they must be the invincible ones.

I moved next to them in the blink of an eye, my hand already around the one on the right’s arm as I lifted him over my head and jumped up in the air. Five, six, seven feet --

Then I _ smashed him into the ground. _

Standing in the middle of the crater, I smiled at the rest of the mob characters, who were all viewing me more nervously. Really, just because you have a temporary power doesn’t mean you’re able to compete with an actual superhuman. 

I heard a crack in the air, and gasped as something smacked against my shoulder. Looking down, there was a hole in my chest, right about where my heart would be. Oh yeah, Victor was an expert marksman, wasn’t he? 

I really shouldn’t have let him leave.

Another gunshot carved through my arm, and I let out a cry of pain as it tore through my arm, the blood pouring out even as I was still looking at it. But why didn’t it hurt when I fell off the building? This wasn’t the convenient super-regeneration I was promised!

That was when one of the mob characters lit me on fire. 

Having been on fire recently, I can tell you it was not a very good experience for me. Being on fire again in under a 24 hour period was absolutely not pleasant. I immediately dropped to the ground, rolling around to put out the flames as one of the two invincible mobs had started to approach me. Wow, superhuman senses are really useful, aren’t they?

I grabbed his ankle as he came closer, and tossed him at the newly found pyrokinetic. The two stared at each other for a moment, perplexed, before their bodies crashed into each other, and formed a new dent in one of the many ships around the area.

This was so _easy. _

I laughed, jumping to my feet as I moved again, hopping up to grab the flier before he could get any further away and smiling at him. Then, I grabbed him, and dragged us both back to the ground. It was only nine feet, so it was fine.

This was _ so easy. _

Moving again, I could see one of the mob characters starting to stand up, one of the invincible duo. Naturally, I couldn’t allow such an occurrence, but I didn’t really feel like moving over to him. Glancing to my left, I found the perfect weapon. 

Picking up part of the wall of one of the broken ships, and rolled it into a simple line. A staff, or a spear basically. Tossing it up and down in my hand a few times, eventually I nodded, finding the weight to be acceptable. I spun it around, before turning towards the invincible mob.

Another gunshot ripped through my leg, bursting my kneecap into shards.

I stumbled. Of course, I fell. It was lucky that I had my iron rod already made, so I had something to lean on. I whimpered at the pain, letting out a gasp as I tried to stand back up, only to fall again. One of the mob characters looked at me in annoyance.

“All that talk for this? You’re barely above even a human, aren’t you?”

Hey.

Wait.

He’s right, isn’t he? Shouldn’t I be more superhuman then I am? Shouldn’t I have more willpower than I do? I grit my teeth, and grinned at him.

“Don’t worry,” I said with a smile, “I just didn’t think any of you were worthy of my best.”

This was, of course, a total lie. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. Every part of me was terrified beyond all belief. I could barely think over the pain. But still, I stood up. I felt blood pouring out of my wounds, and their essence changing inside as it did. I could feel my body recreate itself every time I was shot. I could feel my organs rearranging themselves to avoid lethal damage. 

I smashed my pole into his stomach, and watched him fly into a wall, which he barreled through with ease before crumpling to the ground. Wow, that one looked like it seriously hurt. Good thing he was invincible, right? I could see him blinking and gasping even from here, so he was definitely fine.

The rest of them were moving closer to me, and I was growing frustrated. Fighting wasn’t supposed to be this easy, right? Sure, it hurt a lot, but I’ve never been in any serious danger. It’s basically an elaborate dance right now, with little to no fear for my safety. There was no threat of death in this kind of battle, and all I felt was.

Bored.

This was so, so _ boring. _

Is this just another part of what it means to be an ‘immortal being’, like Kiss-Shot? I don’t even feel threatened and I’ve been shot multiple times. I cupped my hands around my mouth, making sure not to stab myself in the face with my spear, and shouted.

“OOOOI! VICTOR!”

Nobody replied for a moment. He was obviously still here. They wouldn’t just leave all of their random mob characters out to dry, would they? Just because they didn’t have superpowers anymore didn’t make them worthless, right?

“I BEAT YOUR TRASH MOBS! LET ME FIGHT THE MIDBOSS!” 

“Please don’t refer to them as trash mobs, it’s embarrassing,” Othala said as she moved back through the mob characters, touching them to heal wounds and helping them recover.

“Ehhh, isn’t he kind of right, though?” Victor scratched the back of his neck. “Even though they’re trained by the incredible me, who knows seven hundred and sixty three ways to kill someone and that’s just unarmed, they can’t even take down one cape? He’s just a basic Brute package, too. Did you see the way he was bleeding all over the place? You were right, he _ did _look like a bleeder.”

Oy oy, are you seriously insulting me right now? I took out four people alone, right? Even if I got hurt, it’s not like it was difficult or anything.

“Don’t mock him Victor,” Othala said, and I could see her mask twitch like she was smiling. “He’s trying his best, and it’s simply all he can do, is it not?”

We all looked at each other for a moment, and the air breathed around us. Nobody moved, except for their compatriots crawling out of the line of fire. After all, this _ was _a cape fight. My wounds were already healed entirely, and Victor and Othala were pretty dangerous. I’d have to take out Othala first, even if I didn’t like hurting girls. But is a Nazi really equivalent to an ordinary girl, like Panacea? It’s pretty doubtful, right? 

“I’m just getting started,” I lied, smiling. I couldn’t feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins, as my veins no longer pumped at all. “Don’t worry, I’ll only beat you half to death. That way you can tell Alabaster to show up tomorrow night.”

I couldn’t go out in the day. That meant that today, as a whole, was pretty much a wash. I hadn’t found Alabaster. I didn’t have any leads as to where Kiss-Shot’s limbs would be located. I didn’t even know where the next time the Empire might meet would be. But, in spite of all that, I was smiling.

“Othala, look! He can smile! Isn’t it amazing how fights bring everyone together?” He leaned against her shoulder, twirling a gun in his hand. “It’s really lucky that he’s a Brute too! That means we don’t have to hold back.”

Victor raised his hand, and Othala slapped hers against it. What power did she give him? What could their tag-team attack be?

Then he rushed me. I was a bit shocked honestly, so I didn’t move. We were 25 feet apart.

He cleared it in under a second.

Three shots. One to my stomach. One to my knee. One to my shoulder. I fell, bleeding on the ground with a choked gasp as Victor stood over me, bouncing on his feet. I could feel the bullets moving through my body, slowly dropping out the back as the blood seeped into the ground and I coated the Boat Graveyard with more of my DNA. 

“Come on,” he said, smiling. “Get up! You’re new and all, but there’s some real potential for you! I’ve shot you in three non vital spots, see?”  
  
He spun his gun in his hand, twirling it by the trigger. “I’m an expert at almost everything. There’s nothing that I can’t do. You’re the kind of person who relies entirely on your natural talents, right? Someone as incredible as me will always beat someone as ordinary as you. But in a scenario where both of us have powers, you’re stronger than me. That means in theory, you’re one of the worst opponents for me. I’m just an ordinary human without Othala around.”

This was true, and I stood up again, leaning against my spear as I looked at him. Why was he even bothering to lecture me in the first place? Weren’t we fighting?

“But experience can defeat strength any time. So go learn new skills, new cape. And when you do, come meet me again, so I can steal them from you.”

I hurled my spear at his face. Why did he keep _ talking? _

“Haha! Good thing Othala picked the right powers to give me,” he said. He grabbed the spear out of the air, and began moving up as he twirled it expertly. “Now here. Let me show you how it’s done.”

He raised his hand, and out of nowhere, Othala smacked hers against it. His muscles rippled, twisting and turning a deep shade of red as his grin grew wider and wider. He spun my spear a few more times, then threw it up and down, catching it before nodding.

I didn’t even see when it came flying back. I only heard a squelching noise and felt an emptiness on my right side. Looking down, I froze.

Where my right arm once was, there was a void. An empty space. The place where my arm originally belonged was gone. I let out a choked noise at the pain, and I could feel fear enter my body. Kiss-Shot, you were wrong. I’m definitely going to die here. I’m going to die. There’s nothing that can save me from Othala and Victor.

I tried to stumble away, and heard him sigh behind me.

“Man, every time. Othala, we _ have _ to find some better fighters. This is kind of embarrassing, right? Do you think we could beat up Hookwolf together?”

She chuckled, but all I could feel was pain, and something rumbling in my chest. An essence I couldn’t ignore, and I broke out into a run.

“Okay! We’ll find you in a bit, new cape! Don’t give up before then, okay?”

I ran.

I ran as fast as I could. Ten meters. One hundred meters. Two hundred meters. The thing in my chest grew and grew into a roar, until I had to stop with a gasp, feeling something on my right side. Shakily looking down, I saw a hand, scrambling at the air, covered in blood. 

I could feel it. My ‘arm’ had already been ‘replaced’ by what Kiss-Shot had given me. Grasping at it with my left, I pulled my right arm out of my insides. The sound was disgusting, and I’m ashamed to admit that I cannot repeat anything I said in polite company.

But looking at it, moving it, I knew that I had truly ascended to an existence beyond humanity.

Turning around I looked back towards where Othala and Victor were. I could see Victor still, and he gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up as I looked back at him. He was waving my spear around excitedly, and Othala and him smacked hands again before he tossed it at me.

When did he steal the ability to become an Olympic javelin thrower!? Isn’t this a bit ridiculous?! How am I supposed to compete --

My body moved on its own. I didn’t expect it to, but it did. My hands grabbed the spear as it smashed through my stomach, and already the essence inside of me began to churn, swirling as I removed it with a shout as it repaired my insides. I waved at Victor with the spear. It was a good spear, but it needed to go.

I focused.

All I knew was ‘the spear’ and the ‘trajectory’. While I may not be an Olympic javelin thrower, for as Victor said, I am totally talentless in every way. The most common person for an expert to lose to is an amateur. An amateur will make decisions that an expert never would. They’ll see feints as flaws in someone’s guard, a lethal bow as ‘something I can dodge’. In a street fight, the most dangerous thing someone can do is assume it’s like a martial art. And Victor was a master of hundreds of martial arts.

I threw the spear. Victor and Othala both watched it, and I smiled as Victor began to move, shoving Othala out of the way before the spear came home to the ground.

Directly through his leg.

He fell with a cry, and Othala started to scramble towards him. I moved towards the two, scratching the back of my head.

“Seriously, can we just pause for a moment? I just want to talk to Alabaster.”

“Haah, haah,” Victor panted, or laughed. It was hard to tell, because of what was clearly an incredible pain. “You’re a bit of a cheat, aren’t you?”

“It’s a fight, not a dance,” I said bluntly and crossed my arms. “I’m not trying to show you the perfect ending or anything. I’m trying to make you stop attempting to kill me.”

Although it was unclear if they could do something like that. Even just being in the fight made me feel stronger than I was before, more sure of what I could do. But why? Capes didn’t work like that. You didn’t become ‘a stronger person’ just because you ‘tried your best’. That’s not how the world works at all. Was it because of the supernatural element to my powers? 

“W-what do you want?” Othala stammered at me, making me feel a little bit bad. I had just speared her husband through and beaten up all of her guards. “W-what are you going to do to us?”  
  
I blinked at them, tilting my head. “Let you go obviously.”

A beat, like a white frame.

“What?”

They said it in unison, like they were both the same person. That’s not your hidden power, right? You aren’t both secretly the same human and I just don’t see it, right?

“Well, I need someone to tell Alabaster I’m waiting for him. If I take you with me then aren’t I just adding to the problem? I don’t have an issue with either of you, I have an issue with Alabaster.”

I looked at Victor for a moment, as he lay with a spear through his leg. Having been in such a position recently, I walked over to him and yanked it out. He glared at me sullenly and didn’t say anything.

“Othala, please heal Victor. He’s looking at me like I’ve seriously wronged him, even though what I did had no malice behind it.”

“You had no malice when you launched a spear at me and he shoved me out of the way?”

“Of course not. That’d be absurd, right? I just wanted to make sure he couldn’t fight anymore,” I said, fiddling with my spear. It was a pretty good weapon, but I didn’t really need one. I’d have to pick up some manga to learn some serious fighting techniques for Alabaster. 

Othala shakily laid a hand on Victor’s leg, and I saw it pulse with light as she quietly began her work. Victor looked at me for a moment, before laying back and sprawling out his arms.

“Haaah, even the incredible me knows when he is defeated. As amazing as I am, you new cape, are simply more amazing. I, Victor, will most certainly deliver Alabaster your message. It’s Friday night, right? The two of you will meet on Sunday. Even if it’s just for him to explain that he doesn’t have any limbs that you might want.”

I nodded, offering him a hand as Othala finished to help him up. Even though we’d just been fighting, I really hadn’t wanted to hurt him too badly. He hopped up and down on his leg a few times, before barking out a laugh.

“As always, good as new! I’d offer to let Othala touch you up, but even I’m not stupid enough to offer help to the enemy. Kaiser would be furious if someone put you back into perfect condition before you had to fight Alabaster.”

He extended a hand, and I shook it. A smug smile came over his face, and I froze. What skill had he taken from me this time? Was it something important? Something dangerous?

He let go, and pointed at Othala.

“36! 22! 39!”

She fidgeted under his gaze, and my eyes glued onto her as I tried to do it myself. But my hidden technique wouldn’t activate. Victor had completely stolen my ‘Three-Size Detector’. Victor looked at me with a grin, clenching a hand in victory.

“As always, even when I lose, I come away the victor! Goodbye, new cape! I’ll put your skill to the greatest use!”

What was he going to do with it, tell Purity her three sizes in the middle of a meeting? Actually, having spoken to Victor now, he would absolutely do that. Victor, please do not antagonize the strongest Blaster in the city. It’ll end badly for you.

I waved to them as they left, their guards picking themselves up and following after them. You know, for Nazis, they weren’t all that bad. Sure, they’d absolutely have wanted to kill me if they’d known I was Asian under my mask, but as people they were pretty ordinary. They probably thought of cape fights as some kind of date night or something. Biting my lip, I pulled out my phone again. No messages. But Panacea was definitely right.

I needed to try to be a better friend.

_ Araragi _

_ If you’re still working, I’ll be there soon. _

_ hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded _


	6. Cognition 1.6

I fidgeted on top of the roof of Brockton Bay General. Walking inside at 2 am, covered in blood, had started a bit of a panic. The panic had only increased when I’d asked to see Panacea. It had almost turned into a fight before she had actually showed up, looked at me, smacked her hand into her face and dragged me away from them apologizing for her friend.

And now, she glared at me.

“You’re a cape?”

“Ah, well, that’s a bit much. I wouldn’t consider myself much of a cape at all.”

“You’re wearing a mask _right now_, Araragi.”

Oh. I blinked, and felt around my face, before pulling the domino mask off and shaking my head. It was seriously stuffy under there, and I rubbed around my eyes to feel the sweat.

“Ahh, I’m sweating.”

“You’re _dying_.”

“Ehh? No, I’m totally fine. I regenerated all of my body parts and bones.”

She sighed again, slouching against the railing of the roof. Fishing around in the pocket of the doctor’s coat she was wearing, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes, grabbing one and putting it between her lips. I frowned, and she arched an eyebrow at me.

“You don’t approve?”

“...It’s not so much that I don’t approve as it is I find it distasteful.”

A laugh came from her, and she lit it anyways. Smoke drifted from her lips as she stared at me again, and I didn’t know what to say.

“You’re a terrible friend, Araragi. I wanted someone normal, you know? A totally ordinary person in every way that I could relax with. You’re nothing like that at all. You’re out of the ordinary in every way that matters. When did you trigger?”

Trigger? Like of a gun? I can’t remember ever doing anything like that, and I bit my lip. I didn’t know how to speak to girls. Or to friends. In general, my abilities at communication were the lowest of the low. 

“You don’t even know what a trigger event is and you went out in your regular clothes with a mask on. Honestly, you’re kind of amazing sometimes.”

I tried to smile, and she didn’t return it. With a sigh, she stood up, turning away from me to look out at the rest of the city. I glanced at it from where I was, seeing the shining lights of four in the morning. The murmur of the cars below us reached up to even here, going every which way as Panacea smoked and I tried to come up with what to say.

“I’m not a cape,” I finally said, scratching the back of my head. “I’m not anywhere close to being a parahuman at all, sorry.”

“Not close? Didn’t you just say you regenerated all your body parts and bones? That’s pretty Brute-like to me,” she replied, flicking her cigarette in her hands before idly twirling it, carefully watching the lit end to make sure she didn’t burn herself. “I can only think of a few other Brutes who can do things like that. That’s the most cape-like thing I can think of, beyond shooting lasers from your eyes, or making amazing technology at the drop of a hat.”

She gave me a bitter smile, her head turning towards me as her body continued to face the city. 

“I’m not like you. Or Victoria. Or mom, or dad, or any of the Wards, or any of the Protectorate. All I can do is fix others. If I tried to do something like you just did, I’d totally die. It wouldn’t even be a contest.”

I didn’t know what to say to Amy Dallon in this situation, so I listened to her for now.

“You meet me, and then get to become a hero immediately? Life’s a real joke, you know that? I’ve had to struggle my entire life to be accepted, and you can just… go punch someone, and it’s fine? How is that fair?”

I turned away from her. Capes with more subtle powers were never as well liked as the ones with the more flamboyant ones. It’s the reason why Armsmaster is more popular than Assault. One of them is wearing power armor and wields a halberd, the other… is in spandex and can ‘redirect’. It’s not as interesting. 

“I’m not a hero, either. That’s more your thing, isn’t it? I’m just trying to help a friend,” I said, trying to smile. It felt empty, brittle, and a bit barren, even to me. “But I’m not a cape at all. I’m…”

Could I do this to her? I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to drag Panacea into the turnside of the world, where monsters and magic roamed freely and myths laughed at legends. I was in an ordinary cape fight, and it was definitely too dangerous for her. How bad would it be when I fought Weiss? What if I had to fight even more dangerous things?

“You’re what? A saint? ‘I’m just trying to help a friend’. ‘It was the right thing to do’. ‘I don’t know what to say, my body moved on it’s own’.” She laughed at a private joke, but it sounded cruel to my ears. “Those are all things heroes say, Araragi. Not ordinary people. It’s really messed up for you to try to preten-”

I interrupted her.

“Panacea, I’m a vampire.”

She tilted her head as she looked at me, the cigarette dangling from her lips. Her examination was thorough, as she looked up and down my body, arching an eyebrow as I fidgeted under her gaze, before smiling slightly and shaking her head.

“Rejected.”

“What?”

“I disagree with you. You’re nowhere near pretty enough to be a vampire, Araragi. You look like a half-drowned rat who was recently covered in blood.”

Ahhh, what’s this pain in my chest? My heart doesn’t exist anymore, right? So why do Panacea’s words leave a physical pain in my being?

“My heart doesn’t beat anymore. My blood only leaves my body, never re-enters it. I have fangs,” I said, pulling at a corner of my mouth to show off one of my new inciscors. “I’m not a human in any way.”

“Is that really all that it takes to be a human?” She asked me, making a face. “A beating heart? Blood that pumps? Ordinary teeth? Isn’t it more than that?”

“I can’t go out in the day without my skin lighting on fire. I’ll never be able to attend school with you. I’ll never go out to the Boardwalk on a warm summer day. I’ll live for the rest of my unnatural life in darkness.”

“Are those things necessary to being human? I’ve seen some pretty terrible things, Araragi. A man without a face, who I restored while he screamed the entire time. A girl barely thirteen, so addicted to heroin that the first thing she did after I fixed her withdrawal symptoms was to purchase more. A woman who couldn’t stop sobbing, as she clutched her comatose daughter in her arms and begged me to wake her up. All of those things were done by people calling themselves humans.”

“I… I have to consume blood to survive.”

“I work at a hospital, so it’s fine.”

“I won’t age. I’ll be seventeen for a thousand years.”

She smiled at me, taking a drag of her cigarette as she did, smoke drifting out from her teeth while we stared at each other. “You’re not going to convince me so easily to stop being your friend.”

I wasn’t trying to convince her of anything! I was just pointing out things that make the gap between us so much wider! It’s not as if I’m some kind of tsundere archetype who pretends to not desire friends in his life!

“...Maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t keep trying to push you away,” I said eventually, looking at all the lights in the distance. “But at the same time, I can’t let you get involved.”

Friends are a weakness that I can’t tolerate. Even though I now have three, I know this as a fact - to have friends is to lower my integrity as a human. But, as something inhuman, haven’t things changed enough? Can’t I tolerate this terrible weakness, just a little bit?

“Araragi,” Panacea said as she stood, walking over to me and peering at my face. I could smell the cigarette smoke wafting off her. “What exactly are you involved in that’s so terribly dangerous?”

I bit my lip, looking away. I didn’t want to tell her what I was doing. I didn’t want to explain that I had to defeat someone as scary as Weiss. But… weren’t we friends?

I sighed.

“Friendship is a weakness unbecoming of a human. It’s not ‘succeeding together’, it’s ‘failing separately’ that makes you a stronger person.”

“You’re simply incorrect. Having friends isn’t a weakness unless you allow it to become one. Isn’t friendship supposed to be something good for you?”

I disagreed on every point she had made, but didn’t say so. Our ideals didn’t match up at all, and yet we were both still friends. It was a mystery in every imaginable way. Adding two plus two should always come out to four. Araragi Koyomi and friends never worked out. It’s a weakness that I can’t get rid of, in spite of all my efforts. To be completely alone and by myself is when I am most happy, and yet…

I want to have friends.

I can admit it to myself, even though I don’t want to say it out loud. Even though it lowers my integrity as a person, I want to be friends with Panacea. With Kiss-Shot. Even with Oshino. 

“You’re right, I suppose,” I smiled at her, and she smiled smugly back at me, before flipping her cigarette around and offering it to me with a raised eyebrow. I stared at it.

“Woah, those things’ll kill you, you know? They’re seriously dangerous. Aren’t you a healer? Shouldn’t you ignore things like cigarettes?”

“If you’re a person who despises friendship, then I’m a corpse that happens to walk. Isn’t it just speeding up the process to consume something dangerous?”

I took the cigarette, staring at it for a moment. She looked at me, before tapping my shoulder with her free hand and arching an eyebrow.

This is peer pressure, Panacea. This isn’t okay, you know?

I sputtered after my first inhale of smoke, coughing out the disgusting sensation before handing it back to her. It wasn’t something I was interested in, even though I had done so. Panacea put it up to her lips, letting it dangle for a moment while she looked at me.

“You’re a human, Araragi Koyomi. I hope you realize that.”

I’m not human at all, Amy Dallon. And I don’t think you’ll ever realize that.

Neither of us spoke for a while, after that. We watched the lights in the distance fade, until it was around five in the morning. At this point, I sighed and looked at her.

“I have to go back to where I’m currently staying. Please understand that I don’t want to take you with me.”

Her laugh was like ringing bells. It hung in the air for a moment after the sound itself vanished, dangling like something precious that I couldn’t bear to break.

“I’m going to walk you back to where you’re staying. I want to meet this so-called ‘vampire’ that turned you into her minion.”

I did not like where this was going.

_hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded_

  
  
Standing in front of the abandoned building, I scratched the back of my neck, glancing at Panacea as she fiddled with her phone, before she put it away with a frown. Her eyes had such deep circles it was like she was a raccoon, but that was understandable if this was her normal schedule. Panacea, a nine hour shift at the hospital every day is too much, you know? Please take care of yourself better.  
  
“So, they’re in here? Kiss-Shot and Oshino?”  
  
I nodded, before opening the door and walking in with Panacea at my heel. Inside, there were desks strewn all over the place, many of them placed around the tree that was growing through the empty center of the building. Leaning against it, with a lazy wave and an unlit cigarette, Oshino Meme stood with a smile.  
  
“You look so lively. Did something good happen?”  
  
Panacea smiled at him, looking around curiously. The building was fairly empty of anything and everything, more of a place to ‘stage an attack’, instead of ‘living out your life’. I mentally tapped at the door to Kiss-Shot’s mind, and she opened it wide, flooding me with emotions and sights and memories that she had made in the last 24 hours. It was like a hot flash of raw _information _that flooded through my synapses and I didn’t move an inch until it was finished.  
  
Kiss-Shot waved excitedly at me from her perch up in the tree, hopping down easily in her form that looked to be about eight years old. She smiled brightly at me, and it was seriously adorable. Not in a lewd way or anything, because I am in no way attracted to small girls.   
  
“Kakaka, is that my wonderful minion? Does he have any limbs for me? I see you brought a snack!”  
  
Kiss-Shot peered at me expectantly, and I patted her on the head before shaking my own sadly. She pouted in a frustration, so I rubbed her head a bit more. I didn’t have any snacks on my person, so where was this ‘snack’ she had spoken of? Panacea blinked suddenly, rummaging through her pockets before pulling out a bag of chips. Ah, that makes perfect sense actually. Kiss-Shot would absolutely, without a doubt, considering ‘things belonging to other people’ to be ‘things belonging to her’.  
  
“I’m sorry, Kiss-Shot. I couldn’t find Weiss tonight. He’ll be meeting me on Sunday, so please look forward to the return of your limbs then.”  
  
She hummed happily as our connection gleefully opened up once more, the memories and feelings that I had felt throughout the night flooding through to her, much like hers had just done to me. Woah, that’s seriously disorienting. My eyelids fluttered, as my body swayed left and right without a care for things such as ‘balance’.  
  
“So this is Kiss-Shot?”   
  
Panacea crouched before the two of us, her hand on her face as she peered at the currently tiny Kiss-Shot. The small vampire blinked owlishly, tilting her head up at me.  
  
“Who’s this, Koyomi? I’ve never met a person who so singularly smells of blood and despair,” Kiss-Shot said with a confused frown. “Is she a magician?”  
  
Shaking my head no, I prepared myself to explain what parahumans were to Kiss-Shot.   
  
“Maa maa, so you set up a meeting with Weiss. That’s good, Araragi-san! I’m really impressed with your pace already! I didn’t expect you to get to meet him for at least a week!” Oshino smiled as he pulled a bent cigarette out from behind his ear and didn’t bother lighting it. Why do so many people I know smoke? It’s not good for you, right? It’s supposed to have negative side effects, isn’t it? It’s inconvenient if you smoke all the time in front of me! I can’t even appreciate the effects, so would it kill you to not do it around me?!  
  
“Sorry, sorry Araragi-san,” he said, sucking in on his unlit cigarette. “But it’s a habit, you know? It’s a dangerous habit, but we’ve all picked up some dangerous habits in our time.”  
  
His eyes flicked over to Panacea, who shivered as he looked at her, before Oshino scratched the back of his head and sighed, pulling out a lighter. Was he actually going to light his cigarette?  
  
No, he was going to light a small pile of branches on fire for warmth. Oshino, that’s dangerous, you know? We’re inside of this building surrounded by wood! If that fire gets out of control there’s absolutely nothing any of us can do to stop it! Please have more respect for your surroundings, okay?!  
  
“Now, Panacea-san,” he said, looking at the girl in the doctor’s coat. “What exactly is it you’re after?”  
  
She looked at him apprehensively, before snorting and turning towards me, jerking her hand over her shoulder and pointing at Oshino. “Araragi, why are you listening to this totally shady guy? Don’t you have any sense of self-preservation whatsoever? He’s the kind of person who would see a crime in progress and decide to shrug his shoulders because it ‘can’t be helped’, instead of actually doing something.”  
  
Oshino chuckled, rubbing his hands as he crouched by the fire. The flames licked at his fingers, but never quite touched them.   
  
“Crimes aren’t so bad that they need to be stopped every time, Panacea-san. I’m sure you of all people could understand that.”  
  
She cringed at his words, and I looked at Panacea curiously. What could a phrase like that even mean? Is Panacea actually a crimefighter like my little sisters? There’s no way that’s true. We had to stop for a break on the way here because Panacea is ridiculously out of shape. Or perhaps I’m ridiculously fit from becoming a vampire. It’s definitely one of the two.  
  
“Even so, there’s no reason for him to follow your requests.”  
  
“Maa, there’s plenty of reasons to follow my requests, you know? I even convinced Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade to play some children’s card games while we waited around.”  
  
Kiss-Shot nodded enthusiastically from her place in between my arms, giving me a thumbs up when I looked at her. She motioned towards my head, and I leaned down towards her to hear what she had to say.  
  
“Meme’s not very good at card games, so I let him win a few times to make him feel better. He’s a pretty sensitive guy, actually.”  
  
I stood back up, staring at Oshino with confusion. Seriously, what? Why would he teach Kiss-Shot how to play a card game he was terrible at?  
  
“You want him to **** Alabaster, right? I don’t know Araragi all that well, but I’m absolutely certain he couldn’t hurt a fly, much less a supervillain.”  
  
“You’re a bit behind the times then, Panacea-san. Araragi-san just defeated Othala and Victor under a few hours ago.”  
  
She frowned at that, biting her lip. Oy, Panacea, is it really that bad that I beat up Victor? He was seriously going to hurt me, you know? It was self-defense, okay?  
  
“Alabaster’s weak, especially for an Empire 88 cape. If you’re so incredible, why couldn’t you fight him?”  
  
“Why, because I don’t have any reason to help Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade. I’m not her minion. I’m not even her friend, really. I’m just a person who Araragi-san owes an enormous amount of money too.”  
  
Wait.  
  
What?  
  
No seriously, what? When did I agree to pay you for your services? You appeared out of nowhere and stated a bunch of outlandish things like they were absolute fact! I’ll definitely pay you for saving my life when I was under the dumpster, but don’t act like that was all that inconvenient for you, either! All you did was throw a blanket over my head and tell everyone I was a cape who was super ashamed of my new costume, so I didn’t want to be seen for now! Even if it was really funny when we were asked for a selfie, isn’t that more of a prank than actual help!?  
  
“It’s unfair. I don’t like it. I don’t like what you’re telling Araragi to do. I don’t like how you’re speaking to me. I don’t like this scenario that you’ve created in your mind to trap him.”  
  
Oshino smiled, scratching the back of his head. “Maa, don’t you think that’s a little bit much? It’s not that I’ve ‘trapped Araragi-san in a corner’, so much as ‘circumstances have arisen that trap Araragi-san in a corner’. There’s absolutely nothing either you or I can do to save him from his own choices.”  
  
That was true, even when I didn’t know how to respond to such a statement. Panacea looked away from Oshino, who laughed and waved a hand.  
  
“I’m not trying to offend you or anything, Panacea-san. In a way your anger for Araragi-san’s sake is touching, because nobody else is going to get angry about it at all. Do you see either of them complaining?”  
  
He pointed at the two of us, and Panacea bit her lip as she looked at me and Kiss-Shot. We had moved away from the duo to sit against the tree in the center of this building. Kiss-Shot didn’t blink as Panacea stared, and I didn’t either.  
  
“This supernatural occurrence of a ‘vampire that exists in Brockton Bay’ is something that always was and always will happen. The concept of ‘vampirism’ is one that dates back several thousands of years, long before parahumans existed. Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade’s very presence in Brockton Bay rewrites reality into a warped place where if she was not here, then she would never have been here in the first place. Her presence is a stain on the otherwise pristine wall that we call ‘reality’.”  
  
He picked up a random stick, and began drawing on the ground. It was quiet for a moment, the only sound that of the licking flames and the breaths of the two humans inside of this abandoned building.  
  
“You see,” he said, tapping at a stick figure with an ahoge on its head, “Imagine a world where Araragi-san never met Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade. In such a world, he buys his dirty books and reference books, and heads home happily without a care in the world.”  
  
Panacea shot me a scathing look at the term dirty book, and I pretended not to see it. I’m a man, aren’t I? Isn’t it acceptable for me to enjoy lewd things? There’s seriously no need for that crazy amount of hostility, right?  
  
“In this world, Araragi-san will never interact with the supernatural. This is the ‘world that could exist’. A world where the supernatural interaction with Brockton Bay dies before it even begins.”  
  
“That’s good then, right?” Panacea said. “That’s a world where the supernatural can’t harm anyone.”  
  
“Maa, you misunderstand me,” Oshino replied, drawing a wizard hat next to the stick figure. “Even in a world where ‘Araragi-san does not interact with the supernatural’, that doesn’t mean it’s a world where ‘the supernatural doesn’t exist’. The turnside of the world was always going to find Araragi-san. That’s simply the reality of the situation. If not through Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, then through another way.”  
  
That didn’t make any sense to me at all, and I looked at Kiss-Shot questioningly. She sighed, stretching her small limbs before looking up at me and answering.  
  
“A person who was meant to be involved in the going ons behind reality’s curtain was always going to be involved in it. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy, Koyomi. You ‘opened your eyes to the reality of the world’, and as such you ‘always were going to do so’. There’s no escaping the destiny that the supernatural has granted to you.”  
  
She smiled at me, before flicking at my nose and standing up, dusting off her skirt and walking towards the stick figure that Oshino had drawn.   
  
“If Koyomi wasn’t always going to save me, then I was always going to die. Our meeting is as constant as the sun setting and the moon rising.”  
  
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t really believe in what Kiss-Shot was saying, but I didn’t really disbelieve in it either. It was simply a reality of the situation that I had found myself in, on this place beneath the turnside of the world.  
  
Panacea frowned, glaring at the picture. Then she eventually sighed, scratching her head as she shoved her hands back into her doctor’s coat.  
  
“Ahhh, I don’t really understand. I’m good at anatomy, at fixing others, not at conceptual analysis. I’d seriously need to ask Tsubasa for some help here. There’s absolutely no way for me to understand such high level concepts on the first try.”  
  
Oshino chuckled, pulling out a cigarette and offering it to her. She took it, rummaging around in her pockets for a lighter before pulling one out and lighting it, dragging the smoke into her lungs and letting it coalesce around her teeth.  
  
“I don’t want anyone to get hurt,” she said to me, looking at the blood covering my chest with a sad smile before looking into my eyes. “I don’t want to see someone torn to pieces in front of my eyes.”  
  
“I’m totally fine, Panacea. It doesn’t hurt me in any way at all, you know?” I flexed my arms for her, and she chuckled. Her hand holding her cigarette covered her mouth, the ash falling from it onto the drawing on the floor. “I can’t be hurt by almost anything.”  
  
It was true. I could tell that absolutely - in every meaningful way, I was basically invincible.   
  
Her smile seemed even sadder than before somehow, and I couldn’t understand why. It was as if every word that came out of my mouth only made her despair greater, and didn’t lessen it in any way.  
  
“...I’m going to walk home, okay? I don’t really want to be here anymore.”  
  
I nodded, standing up without a thought. I waved politely to Oshino and Kiss-Shot, and watched her as she left.  
  
  


_hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded_


	7. Cognition 1.7

  


“Koyomi, a vampire has some seriously incredible powers, okay?”

It was daytime, so we were inside. Oshino had mysteriously vanished, saying he had ‘some things to take care of that didn’t involve either of us’. Personally, I didn’t really mind being alone with Kiss-Shot, so when he left she had dragged me into a random room and began speaking.

“How so?”

“You can basically turn into anything you want. Why do you think I’m so tiny right now?”

Kiss-Shot spun in a circle with a giggle, before flexing her arms before me. I politely clapped, and she bowed before tapping her lip thoughtfully.

“Earlier, the snacks said that she didn’t want you to get hurt, right? She does realize you’re almost impossible to kill, doesn’t she?”

I nodded, thinking on what Panacea had said. I didn’t really understand her worries for me. Even a spear through the chest had barely affected me in any negative way. 

“There’s a mastery over your own body that only a vampire can have,” she said, waving her arm as it began to shift, her hand shaped like a dagger as it turned into a lethal blade. “In the terms of a ‘parahuman power’, you would be a Changer. It’s a complete and total mastery over form that a human could only dream of ever achieving.”

Her arm dropped, returning to its natural state. She was breathing a bit heavily.

“Woah, are you okay? You seem a bit tired.”

She laughed at that, waving her hands at me.

“No no, it’s because I don’t have any of my limbs. As an existence, I’m currently operating at my lowest possibly capacity,” she smiled at me, kicking at my shin with her shoe. “You’ve got more power than I do right now, Koyomi. As my minion, I’ve given you the ‘ability to execute my will at all costs,’ even at a detriment to yourself. Ka ka ka, it’s sort of amazing, right?”

It really was. That sort of talent was something that any cape in the world would kill for. A complete and total mastery of talent that I could barely even begin to comprehend, in spite of having the power that Kiss-Shot had given out at my fingertips. I tried to reach for it in my mind, but my body refused to change.

“Ka ka ka, I can see you thinking really hard, Koyomi. Don’t hurt yourself, okay?”

Kiss-Shot smiled brilliantly at me, and I patted her on the head. She flailed angrily for a moment, waving her arms wildly as I patted her, before settling down and glaring mutinously at me.

“I’m seriously strong, you know? If it wasn’t you, nobody would be allowed to do this to me.”

“It’s a good thing it’s me then, isn’t it?”

She nodded, allowing me to continue to pat her head. It was about two in the afternoon right now, according to the clock on the wall. We couldn’t leave this room until at least seven, otherwise we would burn ourselves into ash. The two of us sat in silence for a moment, looking at the room around us. There was a long beat, a black frame in between ‘us’ and the ‘reality of our situation’.

“Hey Kiss-Shot?”

“Hm?”

“...Will I ever be able to become a human again?”

She laughed, flicking her finger on my chest. “Ka ka ka, of course Koyomi. I promised that you’d be human after you returned my limbs, right?”

I didn’t know if I wanted to become human again.

I didn’t know if I wanted to be a vampire either.

I didn’t really know anything at all, beyond that Kiss-Shot was one of the two people in my life who I really did trust. Oshino was totally untrustworthy in every way, Panacea was right about that. He’s simply not a person I can put my complete faith in at all. If I did something as ridiculous as that, I would absolutely die. 

“I’m not sure if I want to, is all,” I eventually said, holding my hand up and looking at my spread fingers. “Right now, I feel happier than I’ve ever felt before in my entire life.”

Kiss-Shot smiled at me, lazily tracing her finger across my chest. “Ahh, but isn’t ‘being human’ supposed to make you happier than anything in the world? Doesn’t everyone want to be human?”

I doubted it. There were too many monsters in this world, especially in Brockton Bay. The amount of people like Victor, like Panacea, or like myself were slim to none. This wasn’t a place where there wasn’t any danger at all, in fact it was more dangerous than most places in the world. Not that I’d ever experienced any of it - my family was well-off, I attended Arcadia, and I lived in one of the calmest districts in the entire city.

“I don’t know if I really want to be human, Kiss-Shot. I don’t know if I want to be a vampire, either. Isn’t there somewhere in between that the two can meet?”

She shook her head, looking at me seriously. Her eyes were as red as blood.

“Koyomi, straddling that thin line between ‘human’ and ‘inhuman’ is impossible. It’s more impossible than dancing on the top of a pin.”

“I’ve seen some really talented fleas in my lifetime, please don’t disparage them.”

“A flea, no matter how talented, is still a flea,” she dismissed it with a wave of her hand. “Humans to something as inhuman as us are fodder at best. Our strength is unparalleled, you know? No parahuman in the world could defeat you as you are right now.”

I doubted that. I had a suspicion the Triumvirate, or any of the high-tier capes, could easily give me a run for my money. Victor had nearly killed me, and he was supposed to be a normal person with the skills of an expert.

“Then… why does the supernatural allow the Endbringers to exist? If there’s such mastery over everything like that, then how can something like those be allowed to continue?”

Kiss-Shot shrugged in response, before grabbing a piece of chalk in front of the whiteboard and beginning to draw. Eventually a picture took shape, a crudely drawn version of Behemoth, before a small figure with an ahoge on its head.

“The Endbringers aren’t an ‘existence beyond even the supernatural’, so much as they are ‘an existence that the supernatural doesn’t desire to touch’,” she explained, and drew a small frown on the figure. Wait a minute. Hey. I’m starting to figure this out now. Are you and Oshino making fun of me? My character isn’t entirely located inside of my hair! I’m a unique individual who has his own feelings!

“The mix between parahumans and supernatural beings is terrible, Koyomi. I don’t think you seriously comprehend how dangerous it would be to attack something like that with all of your power.”

She drew a massive blast coming out of the figure, one that covered all of Behemoth and she scribbled a massive ‘X’ over the being. Then she drew longer lines, and the X grew and grew until it encompassed the entire chalkboard.

“Not because it would ‘absolutely survive it’, but because ‘the devastation behind an attack that could kill one would destroy the world’.”

I paled at that, looking down at my hands. There was no way that was true, right? I couldn’t possibly hold that sort of power in this body of mine. I was just an ordinary person in every way. I had no dreams other than to live a completely normal, solitary life. Even meeting Panacea hadn’t changed my core being that much. 

“Now come on, Koyomi! Show me this ‘internet’ that you have spoken of! Ka ka ka, I bet there’s tons of stuff on there that even I’ve never seen before!”

We huddled together as I opened my phone, and began to browse.

_hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded_

Kiss-Shot had demanded snacks, so I had left the comforts of the abandoned building. Heading to a convenience store, I had only my thoughts for company, and had pulled my hood up over my head to avoid attracting attention. Oshino was kind enough to steal half my wardrobe and leave it in the building, so I was able to change and not be covered in blood the entire time. Naturally, I had my domino mask in my pocket, just in case.

The convenience store clerk gave me a weird look as I picked up a dozen bags of chips, a pack of donuts, and several random things of candy. I smiled at him, and he shook his head and shrugged, muttering to himself about ‘weird kids’, and ‘seriously, start using protection’. I would have corrected him, except I never came to this area so I wouldn’t see him again.

I left the building with snacks acquired, and began to head back towards the abandoned building when I heard a body crash into the ground. I shouldn’t get involved, right? It’s seriously not worth my time to get involved.

I heard a girl cry out in pain.

I dropped the bag.

It’s not like ‘my body moved on it’s own’ or anything. I absolutely knew what I was doing the entire time. I ran towards the sound of the cry, already pulling the domino mask out of my pocket and slamming it onto my face as I moved, the cruel sound of laughter echoing through the empty streets.

“You’re weak, Hindering Cat. You’re weaker than me in every meaningful way.”

I skidded to a stop in front of a scene of carnage. A white haired girl was lying on the ground, covered in blood. She was wearing a half-face mask with cat whiskers on it, and a black bodysuit with a tail. It was one of the Wards - specifically Miss Militia’s protege herself.

She staggered to her feet, gasping for breath, and the man across from her lazily walked forward. I knew this man. Every minority in Brockton Bay knew this man, if only by reputation.

He didn’t wear a shirt, or shoes. Blue jeans were the only thing really covering his form. One of his hands were shoved into his pants pocket, and the other was carrying a metal case with a lock on it. His face was covered by a wolfshead made of metal.

Hookwolf.

“You’re barely even worth the time it would take to kill you,” he said, raising a hand as metal began to cover it. “Alabaster was right, as he usually is. You’re a disgrace to oddities across the world.”

“I-I’m not that weak! Don’t look down on me!” The girl hissed as blood seeped from her wounds, and her left arm was basically useless in that state. She was holding it gingerly, but all I could see was the blood that fell from it to the floor.

She was going to die.

“You’re so weak it’s embarrassing. You haven’t chosen to completely give in to the oddity that possessed you, but you also can’t bear to let go of it. It’s warped your perceptions of reality immeasurably,” Hookwolf said, his arm now sheathed in metal as he approached her. “It’s not your fault? It can’t be helped? Both of those are lies that you created in your twisted mind. Did you really think that nobody would notice when the hindering cat vanished, and a Ward appeared on the Brockton Bay team with cat ears?”

He laughed, and raised his arm over her.

“Now die, and die knowing your life was a waste.”

His arm moved down.

My body moved.

Faster.

I had to be faster.

I had to be faster--!!!

The claw carved through my forearms like butter, and I let out a choked scream as both of my hands fell uselessly to the floor. Already, new ones were bursting out of them, and Hookwolf twisted his body, carving off my left arm into uselessness before bounding back. I ripped a new one out with my right hand, still covered in blood.

He looked at me.

“You.”

I looked at him.

“Me.”

“You’re the vampire that she sired? _You?”_

I fidgeted at that, turning around to offer a hand to the girl behind me. She grabbed it, and her wounds began to fade away almost immediately, the pallor of her skin brightening up. What did she do? How did she manage that?

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it,” I replied. “Another way of looking at it is ‘Weiss’ failure to kill Kiss-Shot resulted in my fall to inhumanity’.”

“No supernatural expert in the world would look at it that way,” Hookwolf spat, his words like a snake’s hiss. “You’re an abomination.”

"Thou shalt not suffer a vampire to live, huh?” I smiled at him, scratching the back of my head. “Well, I’ve always been pretty bad at following scripture.”

A second and my body was so covered in blood it was like a red frame rose in front of my eyes. I looked down, and Hookwolf had slammed his fist directly through my chest, his arm deep in the center of my body. He carved it out, and I could feel my body fall like a puppet with cut strings.

“You’re not as weak as _she _is,” he said, glaring at the girl he’d called the ‘Hindering Cat’. “But you’re still frustratingly weak.”

My body began to knit itself together. Nerves reaching over nerves, skin reaching towards skin, as it repaired itself. Hookwolf was dangerous. Way more dangerous than Victor. I stood back up, and he glared at me.

“I heard about you. From Victor. He laughed and said you were an idiot, but a fun one. It’s going to be so damn _fun _to see his and Othala’s faces when I tell them I killed you.”

He came towards me. My arm went up, and I choked a scream. It fell to the ground. **Red**. Blood streaked down my side like a fountain. **Red**. Pain was everything I knew, and at the same time nothing I knew at all.

His body swirled into metal, shimmering and shining in the lights of the street. I could feel the blood pouring out of the wound in my arm, but I didn’t pay any attention to it.

“Neko-san,” I said, looking at her. “Are you okay?”

She looked at me with eyes that were way too expressive, considering they were just pure white circles on a mask.

“I’m fine,” she said, cracking her knuckles. “But you should pay more attention to your surroundings.”

She _smashed _a fist into the metal body that was about to slam into me, and Hookwolf sailed through the air like a baseball, his body crashing into the ground and skipping like a stone. She flicked the blood covering her mangled hand to the ground, putting her hand on my shoulder and I watched with wide eyes as her hand began to repair itself.

“You’re an aberration, you know that?” She said it to me with barely a second of thought, her lips curling into a smile below her mask. “Completely and absolutely. Even in the turnside of the world, you’re a king amongst oddities.”

“Do you know everything?”

“I don’t know everything, I just know what I know.”

Hookwolf roared in the distance, and she looked at me, her mouth no longer smiling.

“Are you going to fight him, vampire-san?”

“Of course not. My body just moved on it’s own to protect a cute girl.”

“Ahhh, to be called cute by a vampire~ My heart is seriously pounding right now, you know?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not currently looking for anyone. Please accept my deepest apologies.”

She laughed at that, letting go of my shoulder and moving into a boxer’s stance. “Please stand back, vampire-san. I’m not entirely sure if I can control what you’ve just given me.”

Hookwolf’s claws carved into the street as he ran at us, his body swirling with hundreds of tiny pieces of metal, and howling as he did so. Cat stood solidly as he barreled down at us, even as I began to feel droplets of sweat roll down my neck. Woah, Neko-san, this is a really dangerous scenario, okay? You can’t just let him do that, right? I can’t let him do that.

He jumped forwards.

Her fist _crushed _through his face, the blades whirling it away to almost nothing and he flew back once more. She sighed, putting another hand on my shoulder and watching idly as it repaired itself.

“Haaah~ Hookwolf’s a seriously bad matchup for me, vampire-san. I’ll hurt myself more than I could ever possibly hurt him, you know?” She smiled at me, putting a hand to her ear. “Apologies, Vista-chan~ it looks like I’ll be taking over your console duties for the foreseeable future~”

My mind raced. I could hear Hookwolf cursing in the distance, and I needed to figure it out. How could I beat him? His body was made of swords. Even if his face hadn’t turned into swords yet, there was no way for either I or Cat to hit him without seriously injuring ourselves. What could I do? He was already rising up again, standing to his full height with a howl that could split the sky in two.

Kiss-Shot said that vampires were Changers. Like Hookwolf. I looked at my arm, and focused.

I didn’t need a weapon. I needed a ‘way to prevent him from attacking us’. Even as he rushed forward, I stepped in front of Cat and held out my hand.

“Stand back for a second, Neko-san,” I said, feeling around for the matter inside of my body. “This might be a little messy.”

One of the main elements in the human body was carbon. Hookwolf simply exacerbated his, creating metal out of his skin and swirling it. I couldn’t replicate something like that; even if I was inhuman, I’m not a parahuman. I’m a vampire. An aberration even amongst oddities.

Hookwolf rushed us.

My arm became a shield. A massive block of metal between us and Hookwolf, that constantly layered itself again and again, more and more iron creating itself on the ends of my arm, a metal that couldn’t be broken even by Hookwolf’s power.

Cat smiled at me. “Ehhh, not bad vampire-san! You really know how to make a girl’s heart pound, don’t you~?”

She wheeled her arm in the air a few times, before cackling viciously and clapping a hand on my shoulder. I felt a sudden weight and then nothing, as she sprang into the air with my shoulder as a starting point her fists raised high over her head as she crossed my shield’s height.

I couldn’t see through the carbon shield I’d made. I don’t have X-Ray vision or anything. But all I could hear was a guttural cry as Cat’s fists crashed down onto Hookwolf’s whirling head, and the sound of flesh meeting whirling metal. Isn’t it actually a good thing I haven’t eaten anything recently? Just hearing that made me want to vomit.

Hookwolf hit the ground with devastating force. I could feel the ground cracking beneath my feet, before it gave way and a crater appeared below us, at least a foot deep and gravity did the rest. It was silent for a moment, and then Hookwolf started chuckling.

And then he laughed.

It wasn’t a nice laugh. It was a cruel, cold laugh that stole away my breath like the wind, and etched itself into my memory.

“Krehahahahaha! He was right! Absolutely right in every way! Alabaster, I’m sorry I ever doubted you!”

Hookwolf stood up again. His mask had moved during the clash, enough that I could see his wicked grin underneath it. 

“He told me that I’d never fought before if I hadn’t killed an oddity. It’s so true! I want more! I want to fight you more! Show me, vampire, what you can do!”

I didn’t particularly want to, preferring to run, and then his grin grew even wider. He tossed the case he was holding aside, and it spun over itself before clattering to the street fifty meters away.

“As an incentive, I’ll wager you an _arm and a leg_.”

Sound died.

The wind died.

The world died.

The carbon I’d forced into a shield converted back into my arm, lengths of iron becoming skin and bones once more, my fingers becoming shorter and nails regrowing as I looked at Hookwolf. He grinned a bloody grin, and spat.

“Yeah… Those are the eyes I want to see. Those are strong eyes.”

Hookwolf’s case held half of the limbs belonging to Kiss-Shot.

I can’t let him go. I absolutely have to take back part of Kiss-Shot’s limbs.

“What are you waiting for, vampire?” He said, grinning like a madman. “Are we going to sit around, or are you going to _come at me?”_

I moved.

The space behind me exploded. Dust and wind ripped at my feet as I whirled towards Hookwolf, and my arm shifted. I could feel the hundreds of thousands of cells inside of it. The dozens of nerve endings, every particle that made it up was ‘something that was a part of me.’

I ripped them into shreds. I carved the essence that was ‘Araragi Koyomi’s arm’ into an essence known as ‘the weapon belonging to Araragi Koyomi’. My arm shifted into knives, every point a weapon and Hookwolf cackled like a maniac as I came close to him.

He didn’t even flinch when I barrelled it into his chest, feeling it pierce through the hundreds of whirling bits that made up his body. He grinned at me, grabbing my neck with his arm, and flung me out of him, my body crashing into the ground as I did so.

Hey, Victor?

You’re totally wrong, I’m sorry.

There’s absolutely no way for you and Othala to defeat Hookwolf. If you’re a ‘master of martial arts’, Hookwolf is a ‘master of combat’. Even as I stood, I could see Cat whirling around him, her fists and feet striking out at his body in an attempt to force him to the ground. And all he did was _laugh_.

“Seriously, seriously! This isn’t even going to make me break a sweat! Are you two actually oddities, because the way Alabaster talked about them, they just seemed…”

He grabbed Cat, throwing her into the air as he raised his leg.

_“So much stronger.”_

His axe kick cleaved through the air where Cat would have been if I hadn’t grabbed her. We skittered to a halt twenty meters away from him, and I dropped her from my arms as we slid to an ending, her casual flip to land on her feet almost mocking.

“My my, vampire-san. This is a pretty dangerous scenario, isn’t it?” It felt like those pure white eyes could move as they looked at me, even though I knew intellectually it was a mask. “I don’t think we can make him stop with just this.”

She was right, and I knew it in my soul. Hookwolf’s ability at combat was ridiculous, a totally insurmountable offense that I didn’t know if we could defeat. Is this really just an officer in the Empire 88? I felt a shiver run down my spine as I thought of Purity, of Kaiser - even in death, Iron Rain and Allfather’s feats still ran through the city. What the hell did they have to do to be able to control this?

“What can you do?” I asked Cat, and she smiled, a small line on her mouth before holding a finger up to it.

“Asking a girl a question like that on the first date~? You’re seriously forward aren’t you?”

Is this really the time for jokes? Aren’t we in a fight to the death, Neko-san?

“I can drain ‘the power that allows someone to defy reality’ from their person with a touch. Your essence is _delicious_, by the way vampire-san. A serious delicacy in the world of the supernatural!”

Thank you for the compliment, Neko-san. Please focus more seriously on Hookwolf.

“If you can hold him for long enough, I can drain enough of his power away that he won’t be a threat. But can you really hold someone that dangerous in place?”

My body was inhuman in nature. I knew it like I knew my own self. But every action I took here made me more ‘inhuman’ then I was previously. I could feel my teeth elongating every time I transformed my body, my mind becoming more and more distorted as I created impossible things from my cells.

“Woah~ You have a really serious face on, vampire-san!”

I could hold Hookwolf. I could already see a path to victory in my mind that wouldn’t allow for anyone to get in the way. He was waiting for us, even now, grinning widely as his body turned into more and more metal, the blades whirling faster and faster around him.

What could I do?

What could I do to defeat a person made entirely of metal?

“I’ve got an idea,” I lied to her, cracking my knuckles. “Wait until I’ve got him held down and you can go for it.”

“Okay! Do your best! Try not to die!”

Thank you for your kind words of support. I really do wish you had more of a serious nature, but it’s realistically not something that can be helped.

Hookwolf is made up of ‘hundreds of pieces of metal’. Every single part of his body can turn into blades. This isn’t an ability meant for anything but destruction. But, it’s simply destruction on a human level.

I’m not even close to being human anymore.

My movements were too fast for his eyes to track. As I appeared behind him, my leg changed, the pieces that made up my heel being exchanged for a long pointed line that could pierce the spaces between his scales. He couldn’t predict it in advance, because I hadn’t planned it in advance.

And yet--

_He knew what I would do before I’d even had the thought._

Hookwolf’s body _twisted_, the metal vanishing before my eyes and pulling him out of the way as the thin spike at the end of my heel became a massive axe, that crashed uselessly into the ground. I frowned as my cells reformed into normalcy, looking at Hookwolf.

“Something like that… Yeah. That’s what I’m looking for,” he said, grinning. “I’ll make you a deal, vampire. I’ll give you the limbs back on one condition.”

I blinked, looking at him. What could he possibly want?

“Make me into a vampire.”

“I’m sorry, but I refuse.”

My arm was already in the motion to punch him before I coalesced it, layering it hundreds of times with more carbon, more metal, and slamming it into his face. Hookwolf didn’t flinch, his smile widening cruelly under his mask.

He didn’t understand.

I hadn’t planned any of this. I had never planned to become a vampire, to fight capes, to protect this Ward. All I’d wanted was to live an ordinary life. But this sort of improvisation…

It sort of comes naturally to me.

My fingers elongated hundreds of times, wrapping around him like a cocoon. The blades whirled more and more angrily, and I wrapped them time and time again. I trapped Hookwolf in an endless amount of iron, even as his blades furiously carved off pieces of my arm, even my arm itself at one point, but still I surrounded him.

Cat jumped past my shoulder, her hand outstretched. I moved out of her way as she curled her fingers into a fist.

“Take a bit of a break, okay?”

He crashed into the ground, her hand still covering his face. His metal blades retracted. He choked out a gasp, as he fell out of the grip of my iron cocoon to the ground. Cat continued to hold him down until he stopped moving, his body twitching a few times before it stopped. I looked at his chest, and saw it rising up and down. A sigh I didn’t know I was holding escaped me. Even if it was Hookwolf, I still didn’t want to kill anyone.

“Wooooooh~” Cat said, rolling off of Hookwolf and onto the ground, her limbs sprawled out like a star. “That was waaaay too dangerous for just a simple patrol! Hookwolf’s really scary!”

I ignored her, walking over to where I felt the rumbling in my chest when Hookwolf had mentioned limbs. I had felt a vague line of connection, and it was growing stronger and stronger the more I moved.

“Heeey, are you listening?”

I stopped in front of the metal case, and it screamed in my mind.

I picked it up, and the screaming stopped. A smile started to cover my face. I’d totally done it, hadn’t I? I’d totally beaten up a real villain, teamed up with a real hero, and recovered half of Kiss-Shot’s limbs. This was surreal, like a dream from childhood.

I didn’t hear anything but the sound of metal hitting flesh.

No.

I slowly turned around, and my throat felt drier than a desert. Arm spinning with metal, Hookwolf was sitting up, his arm directly through Cat’s chest. She coughed, once, then twice, blood sputtering up out of her mouth, and he retracted the limb. She fell to the floor.

No.

“Oddities aren’t so tough after all,” he said, standing up. **Red **covered his entire arm. “Pathetic.”

The case fell to the ground.

The wind exploded behind me, and I had Hookwolf by the neck as I smashed him into the ground, my fingers growing knives to hold him down. 

I pressed harder.

He gasped for air.

More iron. More steel. More to prevent him from hurting anyone else.

He raised a hand, and clawed at my head. I lifted him up and smashed him into the ground over and over, and I could hear someone screaming in the distance.

“Wow you’re looking lively,” a voice said to my right, “Did something good happen?”

I looked up at a man in a Hawaiian shirt who was staring down at me with a disappointed look in his eyes. He had a cigarette dangling from his lips, but as always he didn’t bother to light it. The screaming stopped, and it took me a moment to realize it had been coming from me.

“If you hurt him anymore, he’ll die Araragi-san.”

“He… he…”

“If you don’t give your blood to that girl right now, _she’ll_ die Araragi-san.”

“But--!!”

“Araragi,” he said, putting a hand gently on my shoulder. He knelt next to me, by Hookwolf’s limp body, and his eyes were soft. “If you kill him, you won’t be human anymore.”

I dropped Hookwolf to the ground, and staggered over to Cat. Oshino followed me silently, and watched as I shakily held out an arm over the hole in her body, blood immediately dripping downwards, gently falling into her. Her skin began to reknit itself together, and after a little while she was safe. I could hear sirens whirling in the distance, but I didn’t move. Oshino wrapped his arm around my neck, and pulled me away. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Cat.

“Thanks, Oshino,” I quietly said to the man, who just smiled sadly and waved a hand.

“Maa maa, I’m not trying to save you. I’m just lending you a hand so you can save yourself.”

_hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded_


	8. Cognition 1.8

  
  


I watched almost idly as Kiss-Shot pulled her arm and leg out of the metal case, and opened her mouth in a way that was seemingly impossible. Her jaw stretched to ridiculous limits, and the limbs went down her throat easily.

  
“Ahhh~ that really hits the spot!” She said, collapsing on a bench and patting her stomach. “Thanks Koyomi! I’m gonna take a nap now, okay? See you in a bit!”

She passed out immediately. 

I didn’t move.

I couldn’t get rid of the image of Cat’s body thrown to the floor. Carved open like it was totally meaningless. It wasn’t fair. This city wasn’t fair.

“Wow, Araragi-san, you’ve got a really serious look on your face, you know?” Oshino walked into the building casually, his sandals clacking on the ground. “Would you mind gracing us lowly mortals with your thoughts?”

“I lost control.”

“Maa maa, doesn’t everyone?” He waved off the fact that I’d nearly killed a man. “He’s a supervillain, so isn’t it fine?”

It wasn’t fine to me. I couldn’t forget choking Hookwolf. It was like a rerun of an old TV show in my mind, playing back over and over to the point that I knew every second of it like the back of my hand. 

“I… I’m not human anymore, Oshino,” I said quietly, looking at my hands, things that I had transformed into all number of things without a second thought. “Can I really go back?”

“Araragi-san, humanity is a choice, you know? It’s not a ‘if you do this, you are no longer recognized as a human’. Did you reject your humanity recently?”

“I don’t have any desire to scream and chase after a single family, no.”

He smiled, sitting down. “Then you’re still human, aren’t you? It’s not a state of mind or something like that. It’s a fact that you can either recognize or ignore. You didn’t even plan to run into Hookwolf. You fought him because you wanted to help someone else.”

“She was in trouble, is it really so bad that I wanted to save her?”

“Ahh, you spend so much time worrying about others.”

“Others have problems larger than mine. What do I have to complain about?”

From a completely logical standpoint, my life was easy. I had a family that cared for me, even if our relationship was estranged. Even if I had no friends, I didn’t have any problems with that. My life was perfectly ordinary until I met Panacea, but I didn’t blame her for it.

“Araragi-san, if someone was in trouble, would you help them?”

I blinked at him. What kind of question was that? If someone is in trouble, obviously the only answer is --

“Sure I would. Of course I would.”

He clapped me on the back, laughing a bit as he pulled out a cigarette and didn’t light it. “That’s what makes you human, Araragi-san. Don’t overthink it, okay?”

Even if he’s a psychidelic aloha guy, Oshino sometimes has some seriously good things to say.

“Also, saving you increased your debt by another $200,000~”

“Oy oy, what’s with this ridiculous pricing?!”

“I don’t put a value on human life, Araragi-san. Isn’t it seriously messed up of you to ask me about it?”

“You just put a value on human life!”

He shrugged his shoulders, smoking a cigarette that remained unlit. We both watched as Kiss-Shot slept, her form slowly growing from an eight year old as the limbs digested.

“She’s dangerous, Araragi-san,” he said quietly, and I didn’t reply. “The King of Oddities is the vampire. And the king of those is Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, the iron-blooded hot-blooded cold-blooded vampire. She’s an existence that’s evolved beyond even an oddity. Are you sure you want to restore her?”

I looked at him confused. Kiss-Shot was a totally ordinary girl for the most part. She laughed, she wanted snacks, she hit me when she was frustrated. There wasn’t a single thing that made Kiss-Shot into some sort of monster.

“She deserves to be happy,” I said. “To not be hunted.”

“Don’t you deserve to be happy too, Araragi-san?”

I shook my head. I would rather be the minion of Kiss-Shot then be a human. I looked at him and smiled, repeating what I said only a day ago.

“Isn’t it totally fine, psychedelic aloha guy? I’m happier here then I’ve ever been before.”

“Woah, I feel like you just really insulted my character there. How about you apologize to me?”

I shrugged, smiling softly as I turned my head back to Kiss-Shot. “Alright, I’m sorry.”

We were both quiet for a bit. Kiss-Shot continued to grow, and Oshino and I watched.

“...Alabaster has agreed to meet you in the boat graveyard on Sunday night. He says that your victory over Hookwolf has made him intrigued.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” I asked, glancing at the man next to me. “Isn’t it better for me to meet him sooner?”

Oshino sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes that dug deep into the sockets. Oshino-san, do you want a break? Please take a nap, okay? It’s fine for you to not stay up with Kiss-Shot and me, we’re vampires! I took a nine hour nap yesterday in the middle of the day! It’s not all that out of the ordinary for you to be asleep right now, you know?!

“He’s more dangerous than Victor and Hookwolf. He might **** you, you know? Even with the ridiculous regeneration rate of the king of oddities, Alabaster Weiss is a seriously dangerous person.”

“Then I’ll just have to defeat him before he can **** me,” I replied. Oshino nodded briefly, and we both looked at Kiss-Shot.

The difference between humans and vampires is really steep. I can’t ignore how much I’ve changed in such a short amount of time. The more time that passes, the more I use the powers of a vampire, the less human I feel. It’s a slope that I can’t stop sliding down, even as I scramble to grab onto a handhold.

“You should relax, Araragi-san,” Oshino said. “It’s not good to **** someone without relaxing first.”

“Do you know a lot about that? I didn’t think you’d ever done something like that before,” I said, looking suspiciously at Oshino. “Is Panacea right? Are you just some totally shady guy?”

“I’m not just some totally shady guy, Araragi-san. I’m _the _totally shady guy.”

“Our Father,” I said, clasping my hands together and closing my eyes tight. “Who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name-”

“Are you praying for me, Araragi-san? I’m not in that much danger, you know?”

“I’m praying for your sanity. It seems my prayers are meant to go unanswered.”

He chuckled, and pulled out a match, I was shocked, honestly. Was Oshino actually going to smoke a cigarette? I held my breath in anticipation, my hair twitching as I watched the match move closer to the end of his cigarette, until it was almost touching --

Then he tossed the match on the ground and ground it out with his foot.

“Fights, Araragi-san, are about subverting your opponent’s expectations. ‘He’s going to dodge to the left’. ‘That’s a feint’. ‘He can’t block this technique’. All of those are things that can be understood by anyone in this world on both sides of the curtain,” Oshino smiled at me, ruffling my hair. I glared at him in response. “You’re not very good at fighting, are you?”

“I’ve won every fight I’ve been in.”

“Maa, maa, I saw you after Hookwolf Araragi-san,” he said, looking at me. His eyes were a bit colder. “Don’t lie to yourself, okay?”

I didn’t. I knew that when I fought Hookwolf that I had been on the brink of falling into the inhumanity of a vampire. It was hard to admit, for me, but… 

“I want to be a plant,” I said. “Humanity is a weakness that I can’t rid myself of. It would have been better for me to be born a plant, wouldn’t it?”

“I can think of two girls who would disagree with you, Araragi-san.”

There wasn’t a way for me to respond to that, so instead I watched Kiss-Shot grow from an eight year old to a seventeen year old. Her hair grew longer, from the short blonde cut she had to something that reached her waist, the curve of her hips widened into a shape that was more befitting of a model then a girl my age, and her breasts…

_C’est magnifique._

“Can you defeat Weiss?” Oshino asked me as I stared in a totally un-lewd way at Kiss-Shot. “Because if you can’t, Araragi-san, that’s not the worst outcome in the world is it?”

“I told you before, didn’t I?” I smiled at him, scratching the back of my head. “I’ll be the minion of Kiss-Shot until the day I die.”

“...Yeah,” Oshino finally replied, quietly watching Kiss-Shot with me. “You did say something like that.”

_hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded_

“Alright Araragi-san,” Oshino said to me, as a seventeen year old Kiss-Shot stretched with a yawn. It had been a few hours, and it was closer to the middle of the day then to dawn. Oshino had dragged Kiss-Shot and I into a wide, empty classroom, and was drawing on a chalkboard. “It’s time for you to learn how to fight.”

Wait, haven’t I been fighting all along? Aren’t you underestimating me a little bit, aloha guy? I’m a dangerous fighter now! Even Hookwolf knew not to mess with me, you know?

I mean, he nearly killed me, but he certainly wasn’t messing around in the fight.

“You’re relying a lot on the powers that you received from becoming a vampire,” he said, drawing a stick figure with an ahoge. Is that really my entire character? “But Weiss won’t let you get away with regenerating from his techniques.”

He drew a picture of what had to be Weiss, and Kiss-Shot blinked at it before frowning.

“You’re not a very good artist, Meme,” she said, examining the chalkboard. “In fact, in my entire life, I would hazard I’ve only ever seen one other artist as poor as you."

Isn’t that a bit much Kiss-Shot? Are you really attacking his abilities as an artist right now?

“I’m an investigator of oddities and a contractor, not an artist,” he said with a laugh, drawing a frowning Kiss-Shot behind the stick figure that was supposed to be me. “Your vampire powers allow you to do incredible things, Araragi-san. You’re more dangerous than almost every cape in this city - barring a select few.”

Which ones, Oshino? You can’t just say things like that and not clarify! These power levels are totally out of whack, aren’t they?! If I went to a PHO versus thread right now, I’d have no idea where I’d stop stacking up! 

“Koyomi can defeat any parahuman in the world, not just this city,” Kiss-Shot retorted, holding up a finger. “As my scion, he’s been granted all of my power.”

Thank you for the praise Kiss-Shot, but I really don’t need it right now! I’m here for the tutorial on how to defeat Alabaster, not on how strong I am! 

“He’s not as strong as you think he is,” Oshino said to Kiss-Shot, smiling lazily. “Weren’t you defeated by Alabaster as well? It’s totally possible he could lose.”

She hissed at that, her eyes narrowing as she crossed her arms. “Although I may acknowledge you as an existence, Oshino Meme, do not test me any further. It might be hazardous for your health.”

“Most fun things are, though.”

What is this weirdly flirtatious conversation the two of you are having?! Aren’t you supposed to be trying to make sure I don’t die!? This isn’t the time for you two to realize your feelings for each other! That’s a totally different genre okay? Our lives aren’t a shoujo manga in any way at all!

“In spite of how much we either over or underestimate Araragi-san, he has no idea of what to do in combat,” Oshino said, drawing a frown on my stick figure. “Alabaster Weiss, on the other hand, is a master of both parahuman and supernatural combat.”

Alabaster was given a happy smile. Is that really all it takes to be happy, Oshino? Aren’t you overlooking many other things?

“Ka ka ka, you clearly don’t understand a vampire’s power,” Kiss-Shot said, yawning. She had moved next to my seat, and was laying on my lap, her hair spilling out over my pants. She grabbed my hand and made me play with her hair. It was softer than anything I’d ever touched before, and if there had been any blood left in my body, my face would have lit up like a fire truck. “Koyomi is unstoppable in combat. Now Koyomi, as a sign of your obedience, pat my head.”

I pat her head. Even so, I definitely don’t feel that way, Kiss-Shot, so please let Oshino-san finish speaking.

“Be that as it may, Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, Araragi-san doesn’t _feel _as if he is. Isn’t it okay for him to get a few pointers?”

She stared imperiously at Oshino, before turning her head towards me and smiling. “If Koyomi feels that way, then it’s totally fine, isn’t it?”

I could feel her nudging around in my mind as she spoke, looking for my feelings in combat. I gave them to her, feeding her my memories of my fights with Victor and Othala, with Hookwolf, and my feelings during them. She gave me a worried look, reaching up a hand to touch my face.

“You’re a bit scary, Koyomi. Those feelings you have… They’re somewhat chilling.”

Kiss-Shot’s face grew a bit softer as she held a hand to my face, and went through the memories of combat I had. Her eyes looked sad, and her arm fell from my face, a soft touch brushing across my arm as she finally looked away from me.

“Koyomi doesn’t understand how to use his powers,” she said to Oshino. “He doesn’t comprehend how a vampire can defeat a human. And, in spite of that, he’s won. Twice in a row, he’s achieved a complete victory in spite of being totally outmatched in terms of combat experience.”

Oshino’s smile was scarier than usual as he sucked in on his cigarette. I could feel a chill running down my spine as the two stared at each other, before Oshino finally looked away.

“Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, you are a woman with hundreds of years of combat experience. You can’t directly smash that into Araragi-san’s brain without completely overloading it and breaking him into pieces, right?”

She nodded.

“So the next best thing is to teach him the basics. These concepts of combat that can’t be denied. ‘How to throw a punch’. ‘How to block’. If you can imbue those inside of Araragi-san, he’ll be in a much better situation then he would otherwise.”

“That’s all I can do?”

Oshino nodded. Kiss-Shot frowned. The classroom felt a little bit colder than it had before.

“Very well then,” she said, rising from my lap. “Koyomi, we have to train.”

“Like a Jump protagonist? Is it time for my serious training sequence?” I clutched at my hair protectively, looking at her, “Am I going to lose all my hair?! I can’t do one-hundred sit ups, one-hundred pushups, and run 10 kilometers every day!”

“Koyomi, we don’t have the sort of time to do that kind of training regime. What kind of manga do you think this is?”

She clenched her fist, and I could feel the energy crackling around her. She smiled at me.

“I can’t give you an ‘unblockable technique’, or a ‘move that can’t be defeated’. That’s not something I’m even remotely capable of. I can only teach you the way I learned myself.”

The ground around her gave way with a crack, her presence crushing it down several inches.

“But we don’t even have time for that. So all I can do is to teach you ‘how to dodge a fatal attack’.”

Energy continued pouring into her, and I felt a drop of sweat run down my neck. Kiss-Shot, this is a bit much isn’t it? Aren’t you going a bit overboard here? She looked up at me, smiling brightly.

“So, I guess what I’m trying to say is… hm. Try not to die, okay?”

She launched it at me. I couldn’t even call it a fist - what’s with this crazy strength, Kiss-Shot? Isn’t that a bit much for teaching something?! 

My body moved out of the way automatically. The wind behind that crushing presence she pretended was a fist smashed by my face, and she winked at me as she passed by. The energy died, and she laughed at Oshino’s stunned face.

“Ka ka ka, do you see what I mean now? If he’s ‘hit by a fatal attack’, it’s because he ‘failed to know it was fatal’. That sort of thing isn’t impossible, you know?”

A vampire is the king of oddities. Kiss-Shot is the king of vampires. Is this what Oshino meant? I looked at my hand, and I could see it trembling a bit, the shock of nearly being killed still running through my body. 

“Dodging an attack that you announced isn’t that impressive,” Oshino said, leaning against the chalkboard. “That doesn’t show that he’s prepared to **** Alabaster.”

I still couldn’t comprehend it.

I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I didn’t want to make anyone suffer. That’s why I stayed away from others, to protect them from the dangers that surrounded me. Even before I became a vampire, I was surrounded by suffering. My family relationships were strained. It would be better for me to die than to live. 

“Weren’t you hit by a fatal attack, anyways?” I said, looking at Kiss-Shot. “Should you really be trying to teach me how to not get hit by those?”

She giggled, a light sound that floated through the air, and flicked my nose. “Koyomi, it’s _because _I was hit by a fatal attack that I know which of his attacks are really fatal. Pay more attention to your surroundings, okay?”

I nodded in reply, and Kiss-Shot smiled warmly at me. We both ignored Oshino, who was realistically just an inconvenience for the both of us. 

“You’re going to beat Alabaster,” she said. “Not because you’re the scion of Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, but because you’re Araragi Koyomi. You’ll return my limbs to me, and…”

She frowned. I frowned. What was this pain in my chest at the thought of becoming human again?

“Maybe not,” I said. “I haven’t really decided yet, you know?”

She laughed at that, looking away.

“Yes. I suppose that is true, isn’t it?”

_hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded_


	9. KOYOMI VAMPIRE

  
  


“I’m going to fight Alabaster.”

These were the words I said to Panacea in front of the hospital. She gave me a raised eyebrow in response.

“And? Do you want me to do something for you before?”

“Well, aren’t we friends? Isn’t it a good idea to wish me luck?”

She laughed, crossing her arms in front of her. “Did you think I was going to let you touch my breasts? That I was going to say “tee-hee<3~, do your best, Araragi!”? Don’t be ridiculous.” 

Panacea-san, your words have affected me like a mortal blow. I may not have thought it, but I had perhaps hoped. 

“...Even so, a man has dreams.”

“Your dreams are messed up, Araragi.”

“Every man dreams of touching the breasts of a cute high school girl! From the moment we’re born until the day we leave high school, the chance to experience the idyllic ‘high school first time’ is there! Don’t underestimate the strength of a man’s conviction!”

I pointed a hand at Panacea, clenching my fist with determination. This dream of mine was assuredly impossible, but even so, I want to achieve it. Such a dream of that ideal high school life -- it really sets my heart pounding! 

“All men dream of that?” Panacea said, tilting her head as she tapped a finger to her lips. “Maybe they should have better dreams.”

“I’m not going to apologize for a man’s dream,” I replied. “It’s not in my character.”

She chuckled at me, and the sound of the ambulance pulling up made her face scrunch in annoyance. We watched as they unloaded the patients, before one of the paramedics glanced up and saw us. He walked over and smiled a bit, scratching the back of his neck.

“Ah, excuse me, Panacea? I know it’s a bit of a hassle, but could you-”

“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “Sure.”

The duo walked over to the stretcher and I could see Panacea murmuring something to the man on it. He nodded, and she grabbed his hand. I could see his skin repairing itself, burns that covered him being removed as his body rapidly healed. He smiled at her, but she’d already dropped his hand and was walking back over to me. There was a look of distaste on her face, as if she’d just touched something disgusting. I didn’t really understand that sort of reaction, wasn’t helping others supposed to make you happy?

“...That was a good thing you did,” I said. “Healing him.”

“It’s my job, isn’t it?” She replied, stretching her arms as we walked towards a bench to sit. “As ‘the ultimate healer’, it’s only reasonable that I’d ‘heal those in need’.”

Her face really didn’t fit her words. Her eyes were narrowed, and her mouth was cutting at me as she looked at me.

“If we’re talking about good deeds, then shouldn’t you be the one to say something?” She poked me in my chest. “Mister ‘hero’. Musume told me that she would’ve died if you weren’t there.”

I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t think of what I did for Cat to be all that impressive; I’d even forgotten her cape name.

“I just did what anyone would do. Even if I’m a warped person, my body moved on its own.”

“That’s the sort of thing a hero would say,” Panacea replied. “Just accept your status as the ‘hero who captured Hookwolf’ and it’ll be easier.”

I didn’t want to be a cape. I just wanted everyone I knew to be happy. Even if it was a ridiculous request, I wanted to know that the people in my life, even if things were bad, could count on me to help them. That’s just the way it works, right? You have to help those in need, even if it’s absurd to do so.

“I’m going to fight Alabaster,” I said. “Please don’t follow me.”

“I have work anyways. I wasn’t planning on it, you know?”

She smiled at me, and it was a funny sort of smile, that was a bit too twisted to look right on her face. I frowned at it, but didn’t comment. We both watched the cars passing, and Panacea fiddled with a pack of cigarettes. I took it from her as she tried to take one out, looking at it.

“Those are mine, you know that right?”

“...This is a terrible habit, though. Do you want to end up like Oshino?”

She made a face.

“Please don’t remind me of that shady guy you’re trusting with your life. He’s the one who set up your fight, right?”   
  
I nodded.

“So, do me a favor and don’t trust everything he says. The kind of person who would have the level of connections to set up those encounters… isn’t it a bit scary?”

“He didn’t set up my encounters, I just happened to run into those people.”

She arched an eyebrow at me, tilting her head. I shuffled a bit on the bench, before turning away. In my gut, I knew she was right - there was no way that I had ‘happened to’ run into Victor, then Hookwolf, and finally Alabaster. It was a sequence of tests, that were set up to prove that I was ‘capable enough’ to be part of the ultimate oddities in Brockton Bay. Even Lung wouldn’t be able to deny our power after I beat Hookwolf - let alone Weiss.

“I don’t like it,” she said. “I don’t like Kiss-Shot. I don’t like Oshino. I especially don’t like how willing you are to get yourself hurt for them.”

Panacea-san, don’t word it like that. A guy could get the wrong idea, you know?

“It’s  _ frustrating,  _ to be trapped here while you’re out there getting yourself killed. You worry too much about others, Araragi. Worry about yourself sometimes, okay?”

“I’m  _ fine,  _ Panacea,” I said, not thinking of Hookwolf’s body as I nearly ripped him to shreds. “It’s everyone else who should be worried. Did you have to attend a meeting about me?”

She groaned, sliding down in her chair and covering her face. I could see a tint of red start to creep up the sides as she sighed, a ridiculous amount of breath exiting her lungs. Panacea, that’s some impressive lung capacity! Were you a champion swimmer in a past life, or is this the power of a smoker’s lungs?!

“Don’t remind me. Gallant was staring at me the  _ entire time  _ like I’d just attacked someone. I had to explain fifteen times that I had no idea who the new cape was, because  _ apparently  _ being the only healer in a hundred miles means you automatically know every cape who can change their biology. Even if they’ve never appeared before.”

I patted her on the head. She slapped me in the face. Stay strong, Panacea-san.

“My point is, you’re into some incredibly dangerous stuff. Even after Musume said that you’d tried to protect her, the state you’d left Hookwolf in… People talk, you know? You’ve been listed as someone the Wards can’t approach at any cost.”

“What about the cute healer who works at the hospital? Can she still talk to me?”

She flicked my nose, a small smile on her face. “Nobody cares what I do as long as I show up to the hospital and to heal other capes. As long as I do what’s expected of me, I doubt anyone would notice.”

...That’s really sad, Amy. I kind of want to cry when you say things like that. Is your home life really that terrible?

“Hey, don’t make that face. You look way too serious right now.”

I blinked, and my reverie ended. Looking at Panacea, she stood up, walking a bit towards the doors of the hospital before turning with a sad smile.

“I’d rather be at your fight, to at least cheer you on. I still won’t let you touch my breasts for good luck, but…”

She walked over to me, looking me directly in the eye, before leaning in. I could feel the brush of her lips against my cheek, and raised my hand to touch it as she leaned away, that same sad smile still on her face.

“Good luck, Araragi. Please don’t die, okay? I’m not in the market for any new friends.”

She spun on her heel and left me sitting there, holding my cheek with a completely perplexed expression on my face. I sat still for a while, holding my face as I thought of what I had been through.

No matter how strong Alabaster Weiss is, I have to **** him. I can’t allow him to **** me, because if I do… 

Kiss-Shot won’t get her limbs back.

I won’t see Amy ever again.

Oshino would make that disappointed face.

So I can’t lose. No matter what. Even if I have to sacrifice everything that makes me human, that’s fine, right?

I can do it. If it’s for Kiss-Shot, almost anything is possible. Even death is just a ‘temporary end’ that can be easily reversed. I stood up from the bench, and took a deep breath.

It was time.

_ hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded _

  
  


“Are you ready, Araragi-san?” Oshino looked at me, putting a hand on my shoulder. “You can still back out, you know? Even if it's a set date, you’ve only been a vampire for two days. Nobody here would shame you for wanting to recover after beating Hookwolf.”

“No,” I said. My heart was torn between humanity and inhumanity. I couldn’t decide whether to be a terrible human or a good inhuman. “I’m ready to fight him.”

I wasn’t. Every part of me shivered at the thought of facing Weiss in combat. He was so ridiculously strong that it was insane. I didn’t know if I could fight Kiss-Shot, and he did it with ease. And won, no less; Kiss-Shot was absolutely defeated by Weiss the magician.

And now, I was going to fight him. Oshino’s eyes had yet to leave me, but a sad smile covered his face. There was something he wanted to say, and he struggled to place the words to his sentence before his shoulders sunk, and he removed his hand from me.

“...Yeah. You are. I can’t think of any way to prevent you from doing so, sorry.”

He pointed into the distance, and I squinted. Then I saw him.

Alabaster was unassuming. He wore a white collared shirt with short sleeves, and black slacks. A small smile was on his face as he raised a peace sign at us. His hair was as white as snow, and his skin was ghost-like. He was a totally ordinary person in every way apart from his colorization. It was like the character of a mangaka who got really lazy when it came to colors - he wouldn’t have been out of place in a chapter of Bleach.

But those eyes.

Those red eyes.

My skin crawled as I looked into them, and his teeth turned sharklike as he walked closer, his hands going back into his pockets when he finally reached us.

“Is this him? The legendary vampire’s scion? The one who defeated Hookwolf?”

He measured me.

_ “You don’t measure up at all.  _ Get off the playing field, you third-string reserve pitcher. You’re not fit to stand on the mound.”

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. Every iota of my being screamed at me to  _ move _ , but all I could do was twitch my finger.

“Hey, Oshino, does it count as my victory if I **** him right now?”

Move, Araragi. You can’t let him get the first hit off. You’re not the type of character to ‘take the first blow to show your strength’. That’s something a hero does.

“Alrighty then~!”

My body  _ swirled  _ and I could see in a hundred thousand directions at once. I became mist, and then reconfigured myself behind him with a gasp, the distance between us increasing to 50 meters. He smiled at me.    


“2.6 seconds. Contract: Completed.”

His finger vanished. It was as if it wasn’t even a thing attached to him in the first place. Not even the void like Kiss-Shot’s limbs, no. The space where ‘his finger was’ became empty. If I looked at Alabaster’s hand, it was like…

_ He had never had a finger in his entire life. _

I moved out of the way, and the  _ wave  _ of force that struck out was so strong it cleaved the ground, driving a groove a meter deep into the gravel of the graveyard. When I shakily turned my head to look how far it went, I couldn’t see an ending. Even the sea itself had cracks in it after the force of Alabaster’s blow.

“I see you’re figuring it out!” He said, smiling with closed eyes as he waggled his finger, that had always been attached to his hand. “I’m dangerous, Kiss-Shot’s scion.”

His eyes opened like slits.

“So you should probably give up now. This isn’t a weekly serial. There’s not going to be a cute girl here who gives the protagonist a power-up right before he loses.”

His chest carved itself open, and spiders flooded from his heart like a tsunami. My mind froze. What could I do?

I ripped my arm into a hundred thousand cells, each one a spike. I sent them out in waves, clashing with the flood of spiders coming from Alabaster’s chest like a hurricane.

3.1 seconds later, they were gone. I panted, the blood already dripping from my body to the ground. He was strong. So strong it was insane.

“My name is Alabaster Weiss, the magician. My blood type is AB+. My star sign is Sagittarius. The thing I hate the most in the world is losers.”

He bowed, and I frowned.

“Is this a personal attack?”

“That’s something only a loser would ask.”

Ah, he got me. I definitely didn’t see such an obvious gag coming from someone so dangerous. Seriously Weiss, have a little class you know? Threaten my family or something! Isn’t it a bit underhanded to just imply I’m the kind of person who won’t ever amount to anything?!

“My name is Araragi Koyomi, the vampire. I don’t know my blood type because I don’t believe in superstition. My star sign is Aquarius. The thing I hate the most in the world is the cliffhangers in a chapter of  _ Weekly Shonen Jump. _ ”

Weiss made a face. It had been 26 seconds since our fight had began, but he’d only made and reset two contracts in that time. He smiled eerily at me, like he was only half a person despite inhabiting a full human soul. 

“Not the usual type of person I expect to see become a vampire. You’re pretty different from the norm, aren’t you? A lot like me, really.”

“Please don’t insult me like that. I'm a totally ordinary high school student in every way.”

He stomped his foot, grinding it into the dirt. Flames began to lick at his heels as he stamped, over and over, his grin growing snakelike as he cackled. A chill went up my spine at his voice. Seriously, what was with this guy? Not that people like Hookwolf are more my style, but there’s a thing called pacing, pacing, you know?!

“Ordinary, ordinary, ordinary! That’s all anyone ever wants to be these days! ‘I’m an ordinary high school student’! ‘I’m an ordinary CEO’! ‘I’m an ordinary mercenary’! These aren’t ordinary days, so why’s everyone pretending so  _ damn hard?!” _

I didn’t have an answer for Alabaster Weiss, who suddenly stopped laughing, half hunched over as his head tilted upwards to look at me with dead eyes. It was like looking at a fish, or a corpse instead of a person. 

“That’s why I **** oddities. In this boring, shitty world, they’re new and different. When I triggered, it was like a moment of realization. ‘I was put on this earth to destroy unnatural things’. I want to beat them.”

I want to beat them? That’s not a phrase for someone like you! I want to beat you too, you know?! Why is it that only the ridiculously strong ever say things like that, huh!?

“Because they’re different. Because they’re weak. Because they’re inconvenient. Because they’re nearby. I want to beat oddities until all oddities decide that it would be better off to live underground forever then be around me.” 

I clenched my fists so hard my fingers cut into the skin. I glared at him as I prepared, my arm already collapsing into shards as I stared down Weiss, and he smiled at me and opened his arms.

“Scion of Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire, this is my declaration of war. As a ‘king of humans’, I challenge a ‘king of oddities’ to a duel,” he said with a twisted smile, his arms held wide open. His chest was already carving itself asunder, jagged spikes beginning to reach towards me as he looked at me with dead eyes. “The winner gains control over the fate of your master.”

“...This scenario isn’t right at all,” I muttered, my head already shaking in disagreement. The innate nature in me screams to run away. “How can the king of humans be so monstrous?”

“How can the king of monsters be so human? It’s just the natural order of things, Araragi,” he said with that same grotesque smile on his face. “As a monster, it’s your natural place to die for a human.”

I barely dodged the spikes as they smashed into the ground before me, cutting up my chest even as I moved. They vanished .3 seconds later, as his chest reformed back to its default state.

Alabaster Weiss was a monster pretending to be a human.

His speed was insane. His abilities were off the charts. If this was a normal fight between two humans, nobody could ever move between us. I hadn’t seen Oshino since the fight began, but part of me hoped he had gotten away safely.

“Contract: Complete.”

His arms were torn to shreds as winds rose around him like a hurricane, dangerously fast to the point where even his clothes were being ripped to pieces as he moved. In spite of that, he just kept smiling like the world itself was accepting what he was doing.

I could feel the rage of the spirit he’d bound for this contract. The frustration at being used, at gaining something that would only be lost, but the acceptance that ‘even temporarily, a victory over this human is fine’. In the world of oddities, Alabaster Weiss was an exceptional human being. The kind of person who could trick 10,000 oddities and get away with it 10,000 times. I, on the other hand, am such an unexceptional human being that the first oddity I ran into made me into an avatar of its will. Seriously, what’s with this unbalanced match? Even if I’m supposed to be ridiculously powerful as Kiss-Shot’s scion, how does that make me able to defeat someone like this?! Did auto-balance activate on a bad map or something!?

The wind tore towards me. I turned my feet into cinderblocks, and opened the pit enough that I fell downwards, then sealed myself in. All I could hear was my own breathing and the roar of the winds above me for 2.1 seconds.

I let myself out after that, re-emerging with a gasp as Weiss stared imperiously at me, his hands crossed behind his head.

“Please give up,” I said, standing up shakily. “I don’t want to have to beat you until you surrender.”

“Please die quickly,” he replied. “I don’t want to have to fight a boring person.”

His leg flew off his body like a rocket, and flames sizzled out of the stump, whipping together furiously to form a snake that hissed, its empty eyes looking left and right before settling on me. Then it  _ rushed _ , the jaws snatching at pieces of my hair before gauntlets covered my hands and I smashed it into the ground, the fire melting the iron on my hands before both vanished.

Every blow could be countered.

Like Kiss-Shot said, if I assume every attack is ‘lethal’, then the obvious answer is ‘to not be hit by it’. But I can’t just be on the defensive the whole time, right? I have to try to press my advantage.

I can’t.

Everytime I take a step forward, a new contract appears and vanishes. Before my eyes, I can see dozens of spirits clustering around the magician known as Weiss, a black shroud of negativity that hung on his shoulders like a cloak.

“...You love oddities, don’t you?”

He smiled like a snake, his tongue darting in and out of his mouth.

“Of course! How can I fight my enemy, if I don’t love my enemy? As aberrations on reality, oddities are a cursed existence. It’s my job to remove their suffering!”

He made it sound like such a noble calling, but all I could see were the void where Kiss-Shot’s limbs had once been. My teeth clenched, and I removed my arm.

It was always a sword.

It was always a weapon that I could use to defeat Weiss.

I finally stepped towards him, and my body moved. Ten meters crossed in an instant - my arm  _ piercing  _ through the shield that once was his ‘skin’, lodging itself in his gut. He smiled at me as I pierced him, a messed up, twisted look that was all edges and no softness.

“You really do understand me, Araragi Koyomi.”

I don’t understand you  _ at all _ .

1.3 seconds passed. His body shoved me out of it, and the slate was wiped clean again. This ability… isn’t it too much?

“You see, in a parahuman fight, I chose to be a weakling. Not because of something ridiculous, like ‘only the weak are truly strong’, but because I already  _ knew  _ I was strong. When I joined Kaiser, I joined him knowing that every second I was in a room with him was a second where I could defeat him. Where I could crush him so utterly that his entire worldview seemed pointless.”

He smiled even wider, and it sickened me.

“Isn’t that the best feeling in the world? I’m stronger than everyone else in the world! Parahumans, oddities, even gods -  _ I’ll crush them. _ I can make Endbringers kneel at my feet, have the Triumvirate on their knees  _ begging  _ me to help them - and I can say no!”

His laugh was long and high-pitched, and it grated on my nerves. Nails on a chalkboard were nicer to listen to then Weiss’ laughing, but his face suddenly dropped into a totally serious look.

“Hey, Araragi… Take me seriously. You’re more inhuman than any oddity I’ve ever met, so why do you keep trying so hard to be human?”

I didn’t know what he meant. There was no way I could possibly understand the thoughts of someone as disturbed as Alabaster Weiss. As an existence, he was in direct opposition to everything I believed in.

“You’re a vampire, right? Even if you grew up in a world of capes...” 

His eyes dropped into something even more dangerous. The sneer that grew on his face belonged to a card shark that’s just found the easiest mark of his life.

“You fell into inhumanity so _easily_. You went from being an ordinary person to something inhuman faster than anyone can believe. In another world, it would have taken you two weeks at least. Here?  _ Two days. _ ”

“Just because I’m a vampire doesn’t make me inhuman,” I lied, knowing it was untrue. Every time I shifted my form, every time I regenerated, I could feel something intangible slip away from me. “Being human - it’s more than just existing.”

“You’ve never existed in your life. Looking at you, I can see how alike we are,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I’ve made a contract of ‘viewpoints’. I’ve viewed your perspective of the events leading up to this. You were just moving through life before running into an oddity.”

He smiled again, and his fingers became like knives, long and serrated as he walked towards me.

_ “Isn’t that exactly the same as me?” _

He lunged, and before he even reached me his fingers shifted back, and then his entire body  _ boiled,  _ his skin covered in bubbles that burst on top of me. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t think of anything other then the pain I was in.

Weiss had given up ‘his skin’ for ‘acid’. His entire body was a deathtrap that I moved away from as fast as I possibly could, panting as my own skin sizzled. Smoke left the places where his acid had touched me, as my regeneration already began to kick in. He sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“High-speed regeneration really is convenient, huh? But the way you use it…” His lip curled into something distasteful. “Isn’t that just the way someone fights when they have no consideration for their own life?”

I didn’t reply. My arm turned into an axe before he could blink, and I crossed the distance. I raised it over my head, bringing it down on top of him ---

\--- But again, I’m too slow.

Again, I can’t do anything.

His skin shifted into iron while I moved, and he just smiled at me as my attack rolled off uselessly. I couldn’t even  _ touch  _ him, he was so strong.

“Oh? A newcomer?”

I froze. My head turned.

There was someone in the distance. It was a girl who had to be shorter than me, wearing a robe with a cross on it that covered her face. She had curly brown hair, and freckles that crossed the bridge of her nose, barely visible under her hood. No.

“Well, I’ll be right back okay?  **Don’t move ** from that spot.”

My body locked up harder than stone. Even if I tried, I couldn’t move my limbs. My lips were sealed with glue. Every part of me was locked up.

1.2 seconds had passed.

He reached her in .7 seconds. His arm turned into a sword in 1.1 seconds. It went up in .1 seconds. And my eyes could only watch.

It went down in 1.63 seconds. I was already moving the instant his control over me broke free but --

_ I wasn’t fast enough. _

There was no way for me to cross the distance to reach them in the time it took him to drop down the sword. I could only watch as it speared through her chest, a massive red splash coating the ground right as I reached them. I couldn’t breathe. No. I couldn’t think. No.

He removed his arm.

She fell.

I was by her in under a second. I grabbed her as she fell, but instead we just fell together. Landing on my knees, I could only look at her face. She had a soft smile on it, and she reached up to touch my face. 

Her hand fell.

Her breath started to still.

“She just got in the way, right? It’s not my fault that she can’t survive a single hit.”

I couldn’t see anything but her body.

_ [query?] _

I couldn’t hear anything but the blood in my ears.

_ [destination] _

“Don’t worry, kid. I’ll send you right after her.”

She was dead. A corpse that couldn’t walk anymore. And it was my fault. If it wasn’t for me…

_ [sjkhagfdsjalkddgabsdvcx ERROR. ERROR. CANNOT ATTACH TO HOST.] _

“Don’t be sad, Araragi,” I could feel the weight of the ‘Force’ that Weiss had contracted beginning to move over to me. “That’s just how the dice landed, right?”

_ [query. query. Host deceased. Confirm new target?] _

Rage. All I saw was red. Red like her blood. Red like my heart. The pumping in my veins grew faster, and faster. It was like I wasn’t even a vampire at all. I turned my face towards Weiss, already shaking with rage. He grinned widely at me in response.

“Yeah, those are the eyes I wanted to see. Those aren’t human eyes.”

_ [Redirection. Host Alive.] _

I killed Alabaster.

_ [trajectory] _

I ripped his heart out of his chest. It only took a second. He laughed the entire time, his body falling down. The heart in my hand already vanished before I could even crush it, and Weiss laughed like a hyena as he stood back up, the red splattered across his shirt remaining even as all the blood didn’t.

_ [ _ ** _AGREEMENT._ ** _ ] _

“Yes! Don’t worry, vampire! I’ll make sure to take good care of you after I  _ seal your limbs! _ ”

I could feel the contract in the air, already forming. That meant I only had 2.6 seconds left before Weiss reset again. But something had changed in me, and when I opened my eyes, the  _ world shifted. _

In the harbor, there were 267,933 fish. Of those, 54,126 were diseased. All of them were filled with a substance that I could control.

I tore it out. All the blood of every fish in the harbor. I could feel every cell from them, and fish cells were similar enough to human cells I could tweak them to my needs. A tornado of blood whirled in the center of the harbor, and Weiss watched it with wide eyes.

“Wh-what!? Where’d you get this kind of power--!!”

I didn’t need that much. I redirected part of the swarm downwards, and grabbed at it. It carved at my skin, needy and wanting, and I let it. I needed the blood to mix, for this to work.

“Hey, Weiss?”

He looked at me.

The swarm flew at him.

_ “Give her back to me.” _

I killed Alabaster Weiss again. I felt his life leave his body as blood rampaged in the air like daggers, a falcon wreathed in red hovering by my shoulder. Everything in this world is ‘made of blood’. Every cell. Every atom. Every fibre of your clothing. Every page of your book. Even the scroll wheel on your mouse - all of it is made of blood.

“I’ll kill you.”

He gasped for air as his body reset. With barely a thought, a rain of red roared through the boat graveyard, grabbing whatever steel it could, and crushing it against him. His body whipped through the air, slamming into the side of a boat and I pinned him there.

“F-for what? You’re just a monster! I’m a human! Normal people aren’t supposed to get in the way of our fight!”

“She wasn’t just a normal person.”

I punched him in the face.

“Her name was Amy Dallon.”

I turned my hand into a sheath for knives and punched him in the stomach.

“She doesn’t mess with brains. But she totally messed up my world view.”

A falcon of blood pecked out his eyes.

“She works too hard. She doesn’t sleep enough. She’s sad all the time.”

I let him fall to the ground, and he lay there for a moment. Choking. Coughing.

“Get up.:

Grabbing his neck, I heaved him upwards. He spat at me, and his arm  _ shifted,  _ a sword where there was no sword that cleaved my skull in two.

“Is that all?”

My head reformed.

I wasn’t just an oddity. I was the king of oddities. The vampire of vampires. The scion of Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, the iron-blooded, cold-blooded, hot-blooded vampire. This was nothing to me. A split skull? What a joke. 

Apologize to every soldier in the world, you  _ bastard. _

Flinging him away, I called for more. More blood. The typhoon roared behind my back, becoming smaller and smaller, until it coalesced into a creature the size of a boat itself. I raised my arm. Behind me, a behemoth raised an arm as well.

“You’re not even an oddity! You’re… you’re just a monster!”

“That’s the thing about monsters, Weiss-san,” I said, smiling. I brought my fist down, and the creature  _ howled  _ behind me as its arm smashed down on top of Alabaster Weiss.

_ “There’s always a bigger one. _ ”

He wasn’t even harmed when the arm went away. He was already standing up with enraged eyes, hissing. 

“You’re just a fake! You’re not even human anymore, why are you pretending so hard?!”

“She just wanted to be happy. Was that a crime, to you? Her happiness?” I clenched my fists. “Every time I saw her, she was so sad! Even though we’ve only met three times, she’s my best friend in the entire world! Even if it’s just a relationship based on when I saw her panties, I don’t care! She was a person who put her all into helping others, and no one bothered to help her!”

And now she was dead.

“She’s dead, so I’ll hurt you. She’s dead, so I’ll destroy you. She’s dead, so I’ll kill you.”

I broke the creature behind me into parts, and added them to myself. Everything’s blood was under my dominion. I was a monster, after all. You can’t control something that’s not meant to be contained. 

Raising my arm again, I turned the construct into three swords, each longer than my entire body. But before I struck, I froze.

“Five Lives Contract:  _ Complete. _ ”

Alabaster smiled again. His body twisted, a total shift in musculature as he grew larger, his legs gained spikes, his arms claws. He roared at me, as a beast more than a man, and I looked at him. Even though he was five times my height, I didn’t feel any fear.

He slammed a hand into me, and I blocked it, raising my own to stop the movement. It hurt. My body shook as I tried to hold him off, but even so I was sent flying.

“This isn’t a shonen manga, Araragi! Just because you got a new power doesn’t mean you can beat experience!”

He whirled towards me, his claws outstretched, his face twisted into a death’s head --

“Experience beats amateurism  _ any day of the week! _ ”

He was wrong.

I dropped an anchor on his head. His body crumbled to the ground, and shifted back to default. 4.3 seconds. That’s the start of every loop. Every loop begins at 4.3.

3.2 seconds remain as he stood up.

2.1 seconds remain as he glared at me, and his body twisted into water. He  _ moved,  _ appearing before me before I could blink, my arm twisting into iron as his body smashed against my shield.

1.2 seconds remain as he steps back, knowing this is his weak point. But its too slow.

0.2 seconds. I was in front of him.

4.3 seconds. I tore out his heart.

“-!”

He couldn’t say anything. Only look dumbly at the ‘place’ where his heart had once been. I smiled at him, raising it with my hand.

_ Then I took a bite. _

\--And time began to move again.

Weiss fell down, unable to move, no longer able to breathe. I had killed Weiss the magician, for nothing. I couldn’t stop him from killing Panacea. I sunk to my knees, closing my eyes. I’d won, and yet I felt more lost than ever. My power roared at me, and I could feel everything around me. All the blood in a ridiculous radius was under my control. But...

I could feel something.

A heartbeat.

A heartbeat where there definitely shouldn’t be one. My swords shattered into flecks of red, and I whirled towards her. She was  _ breathing.  _ Shallowly, barely, but she was breathing. 

I staggered to my feet, and hobbled over to her. She was so  _ pale _ , so  _ cold --  _ I-!!!

Oshino had told me that my blood could save that girl when I fought Hookwolf, right? So why not this one? I coughed, and I could feel the blood coming up. Opening her mouth, I let it fall between her lips, the blood from my lungs going into her lungs. I could already sense it inside of her, moving, twisting, trying to ‘repair’ what had previously ‘been broken’. Even if there was a hole in her chest, it was fine, right? She’d live, right?

I couldn’t breathe as I watched her. Not that I needed to breathe, but it was a habit. I sat perfectly still for half an hour, watching Panacea breathe.

Her eyes fluttered open after two hours.

“Ar… Araragi?”

“Hey,” I said with a blood filled smile. “You promised you wouldn’t come.”

“What… what kind of friend would I be, if I didn’t cheer you on?” She coughed it out, gasping for air.

“The kind that let me touch her breasts before a climactic sequence.”

“D-don’t… be ridiculous,” she replied, smiling a bit. “I-I’m… I’m not that easygoing, okay?”

“Yeah. I know. Just rest a little, alright?”

She closed her eyes again, and I stood up, her body still in my arms. 

“My my, you’re looking lively,” I heard a voice say from behind me. Before even turning around, I knew who it was. “Did something good happen?”

I looked at Oshino Meme with cold empty eyes. He looked at me with sad ones.

“This is why I told you that they don’t mix, Araragi-san.”

I created a sword of blood in barely a second’s thought. He sighed, scratching the back of his head.

“Maa maa, you’re in no state to be fighting someone like me, Araragi-san. I’m not some two-bit mob character who gets one-shot by the protagonist right after he beats the final boss, you know?”

He flicked my forehead, and my eyes went crossed for a moment before I blinked, looking back at him, trying to recall the past few seconds. What had happened? Why was I… 

“Araragi-san,” Oshino said, leaning against a wall with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. “You’re one of the few people who has crossed the bridge between parahuman and oddity. How does it feel?”

“I don’t feel different at all,” I lied. My mind was like an empty message box an adolescent boy looks at when he’s trying to send a text to a girl he likes. “I’m completely fine.”

“Liar~” the man responded, waggling a finger in the air. “You don’t have the mindset to walk that line at all. But don’t worry, I have something that’ll fix that for you!”

He held out a case, and I could already tell what it was filled with. The other half of Kiss-Shot’s limbs.

“And, as an apology for what happened to Neko-san, here!”

He held out a chest in his other hand. I didn’t know what it was, and I arched an eyebrow. He smiled lazily at me, tilting his head and winking.

“Please don’t ever wink again, you look like a predator.”

“Wow~ the very strong Araragi-san said something seriously messed up to me so casually~!”

“Don’t talk like that! Who do you think you are, an elementary school girl with a giant backpack or something!?”

“I don’t know what you mean Araragi-san. I’m just trying to repay a favor.”

He put down the case of limbs, and tapped the chest with his now free hand. As he did, I could hear whispers from it, trying to invade my mind.

“Inside this is the ‘heart of Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade’. Something that I took from her when she wasn’t paying attention. I’m returning it to you, even though you’ve temporarily lost your way.”

He tossed it over to me, and I formed a cage of blood to catch it, one that hovered over my shoulder as he watched it with sad eyes.

“Even now, you’re losing your humanity with every second, Araragi-san. I’m terribly sorry, but if this continues I might have to kill you myself.”

“What do you mean?”

He sighed, looking at Panacea’s body with pity in his eyes. “Seriously, all this for one girl? Isn’t it a bit overkill, Araragi-san?”

“She’s my friend.”

“Your soul can’t be both an ‘oddity’ and a ‘parahuman’. It also can’t choose between one or the other. Sooner or later, your entire being will rip in half because of the contradiction in your conceptual state. It’s not a case of ‘one or the other’ it’s a case of ‘neither can live while the other survives’.”

I blinked, tilting my head at him. His words were seriously twisted, but up to this point Oshino had never lied to me. He may have stretched or left a fog over the truth, but he’d never lied outright. My mind was slipping from me even as we spoke, turning itself into something more fogged and dazed over time.

“Drop the parahuman power, Araragi-san. If you let it go, it’ll be a lot easier to talk, you know?”

I turned it off.

And nearly dropped Panacea from the shock. My limbs screamed, my chest heaved, and I fell to my knees with a girl in my arms as it all hit me at once. My body shivered like it was -30 degrees out, even though I knew it was warm.

“Yeah. That’s the thing about parahumans and oddities, Araragi-san. They really, really don’t mix well. I’m honestly shocked you could even trigger like you are. What a seriously twisted power you’ve developed.”

I couldn’t reply, as I was busy vomiting my guts out. I looked up at him after a moment, after making sure I didn’t get anything on Panacea, and tried to speak.

“Wh-what happened?”

“Easy! You had a trigger event! You won your fight! Kiss-Shot can now live a happy life, and you can go back to being human! Everything ends perfectly, right?”

He smiled.

“Or not!”

It dropped.

“As a parahuman and an oddity, your soul is now in a state of flux. Weiss’ mind was so twisted because of something like what’s happening to you right now. If you were a manga character, you’d be a ninja with two kinds of chakra flowing through him, but you don’t have a shinigami seal to keep them separated!”   
  
What’s with this weirdly specific metaphor!? Even though I’ve naturally read some of the big three, I don’t remember such insanely minor details like that! Are you a massive Naruto fan in secret, Oshino-san?!

“I can’t be your Jiraiya, either! While I may have a hobby in oddities, I’ve never been interested in parahumans. My suggestion is this, Araragi-san.”

He placed a hand on my shoulder, and looked me dead in the eyes.

“Never use your parahuman power ever again. Not even in times of danger. Not even in times of need. As someone who dangles on the edge of inhumanity, using that power of yours pushes you straight over the edge into a monster. So give it up, forever okay?”

I nodded, hesitantly. Standing up with Panacea in my arms, Oshino smiled as he grabbed the chest I had set down and picked up the case. I smiled at him.

“Thanks, Oshino.”

“Maa maa, I’m not trying to save you. I’m just helping you so you can save yourself.”

We left the corpse of Weiss behind us. I didn’t want to look at it anymore.

I’d killed Alabaster Weiss. But, in doing so…

I’d lost something absolutely core to myself that I can’t even remember anymore.

_ hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded _


	10. Cognition 1.10

We walked back in silence to the abandoned building. There was nothing for either of us to say - not because our ideals were too different, or because we were too similar, but because both of us were lost in different thoughts. I could feel the tendrils of my power, just out of my own reach, and I wanted to grab it more with every second that passed.

But I didn’t.

Oshino was right. The power that I’d gained was dangerous. Ridiculously so; I don’t remember PRT threat ratings very well, but the rating on ‘can turn blood into a weapon’ would probably be pretty high. But more than that…

I was watching Panacea sleep. She looked peaceful like this, more than I’d ever seen her before. I reached out and brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face, while Oshino watched me carefully.

“You almost look human like that,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “It makes me forget what you did to Weiss, just for a bit.”

I didn’t reply, still looking at Panacea. Her chest slowly raised and lowered as breath entered and exited her body, but in spite of it she still looked like a corpse. I could see the stains of red, the hole where the blade had punctured through her entire body, and she looked like a ghost. Maybe it was because she wore all the white, but it was an appearance like that of a person who barely existed.

She was light.

Not light as in ‘weightless’, or something like that. She was light in my arms, and it was easy to walk with her in them. Woah, wait a minute.

Isn’t this totally a flag? Haven’t I raised a flag right here?

“But this is the end of it, right?” Oshino smiled at me, lifting the case in his right arm and the casket in his left. “You’ve defeated all of Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade’s enemies. You’ve claimed your rightful place in Brockton Bay’s supernatural world. What will you do now?”

“...I’m not sure,” I said, looking away from Panacea to watch Oshino. “I didn’t really plan anything out afterwards.”

“Maybe you should _relax_, Araragi-san,” he said. The scenery was shifting, from the plain concrete and stone buildings to construction signs and warnings. We were nearing the abandoned building that Oshino had turned into our ‘hideout’ for the time being. I could already sense the limbs shivering in anticipation as every step we took brought us one step closer to Kiss-Shot. “You’ve done a lot in these past few days.”

Yeah.

Maybe I’ll just take a break. Relax a little. Go see a movie or something. Explain how to post on an internet forum to Kiss-Shot. Eat snacks with Oshino. Just a totally ordinary series of events that nobody could interrupt. It’d be nice, wouldn’t it?

“I’d like that, I think,” I said to him. “I’ll think over what to do about my vampirism in a bit.”

The building loomed closer, and Panacea’s eyes flickered open. I stopped, and Oshino put down the cases he’d been carrying. The girl looked around left and right for a moment, before her eyes stopped on me.

“Araragi? Is… is that you?”

I nodded.

“Hah… Of course you’re fine… I didn’t need to worry at all, did I?” She smiled, a brittle sad smile that cut to my core. “Give me back the time I spent wondering if you were alright. Can you put me down? I want to stretch my legs.”

I knelt, letting Panacea go and she stood up, stretching her arms. Her body was slim, and much smaller than I was, to the point that it was kind of shocking. She held out her arms, and bit her lip as she took a shaky step, then another, then a third. Suddenly, she fell down, and I rushed over to her, but her face was smiling and her shoulders were shaking.

“Hahaha… Isn’t this unfair?”

She laughed, like bells dancing in the wind. She laughed, like glasses clinking together. It was a sound that was both kind and cruel, vicious and polite, easygoing yet dangerous. I reached out a hand to her, and she whacked it away.

“Lay down with me, Araragi.”

I laid down next to Panacea, and we both stared at the starlit sky. Smog covered parts of it, but you could still see those shimmering lights in the distance, even if it was just through the gaps of the clouds. The wind was soft and warm, and there were no sounds of cars anywhere around.

“I love this city,” Panacea said to me, staring at the sky. One of her hands reached up to it, like she could grasp at the stars themselves. “But I hate it too. I hate everyone here. I hate my mother. I hate my father. I hate my sister. I hate my supervisor. I hate the PRT. I hate the gangs. I hate the heroes. I hate the villains. It’s not that they’ve ever done anything to me personally, but I hate them anyways.”

“Why?”

She turned her head to me, smiling. “Because for all their talk about ‘saving others’, nobody’s ever tried to save me. Even though every gang claims to be the most wicked of them all, nobody’s ever tried to kill me either. I’m untouchable in every way, just for the hopes that I’ll show up to an Endbringer fight one of these days.”

She clenched her fists, so hard they drew blood. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me, and she was shaking a bit, even though we were both laying down.

“What if I don’t want to fight an Endbringer?! What if I don’t want to be a healer!? Is it fair to force all that on me even though I don’t want it, huh?! I just… I just want to be _normal_.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, and we both stared at the stars. Oshino had already vanished, leaving behind the limbs and heart of Kiss-Shot, and it was just the two of us.

“It’s unfair, right? That’s my whole life, Araragi. It’s just a joke. ‘Panacea, we’re your family’. ‘Panacea, you have to do good things’. ‘Panacea, you have to heal them’. All of those statements are lies, right?”

I didn’t say a word. The stars glittered in the distance, smog half-covering them from our eyes. But even then, I could still see them - the enhanced vision of a vampire able to cut through even the darkest clouds.

“And then _you _came along,” she said like it was a curse, but she was smiling at me. “You. With your ‘normalcy’ and your ‘rejection’. You have a lot to learn about a girl’s heart, Araragi. Rejecting my help over and over again… Jeez, you’d think we weren’t friends at all.”

She laughed a little, as we looked at the stars. The ground felt cold on my back, but I was too warm to sit up. That twinkling in the distance was something neither of us could ever grasp at, no matter how hard we struggled, how hard we tried. To do something like _really _touch the sky, that’s a power beyond even a vampire and a parahuman.

“I think we’re friends,” I said to her. “I saved you because you didn’t deserve that. I talked to you because I wanted to apologize. I helped you because you looked sad.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be some scary vampire? Are you going to turn me into one of you now?”

I shook my head. I had no interest in making Panacea become like me, because I didn’t want anyone else to be anything like me. Not even I wanted to be like me.

“Haha, of course you wouldn’t,” she said with a smile. “You’re stupidly heroic. I kind of hate that about you, you know?”

“I hate how you treat yourself,” I replied. “I hate how you don’t ever take time for yourself. I hate how you give so much up of yourself in return for nothing. It’s unfair.”

“Yeah, yeah, Araragi. That’s the way the world is, okay? I ditched work to be hurt, because of you. I woke up with barely a scratch, because of you. That’s not fair at all, is it?”

I clenched my fists in frustration. I couldn’t deny it. Even if I wanted to deny that I’d hurt Panacea, it was totally impossible - every time I closed my eyes, I saw her corpse. She couldn’t walk like that. Couldn’t exist like that. How was that fair at all?

“I don’t like that,” I said. “I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted you to come at all. I just…”

“What? Wanted to be friends? Congratulations Araragi! You’re the one and _only _friend of the Amy Dallon. Isn’t it all you ever expected?”

I shook my head. Her smile was sadder than ever. I hated it. I hated everything that made Panacea like this. I stood up, and held out a hand to her. She didn’t grab it, still staring upwards at the stars.

“I’ll save you, then.”

“Save me?” She looked up at me, her eyes confused. “From what? I’m totally fine.”

“From being bored. From the things that make you cry. From the things that make you happy. I’ll save you.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Araragi,” she said, her eyes not moving from me as she and I spoke. “You can’t just say ‘I’ll save you’ and have everything work out. Even if you say that you won’t let me cry anymore, I’ll still cry.

“Then I’ll dry your tears.”

“Even if you say that you won’t let me be bored anymore, I’ll still be bored.”

“Then I’ll do something to make it less boring.”

“No! You can’t just keep _doing _things like this! Think about the feelings of other people around you! It’s not fair to them, is it? That you’re so… so…”

She chuckled at first, then burst out laughing. She laughed so hard that her arms started shaking, and she put them around her sides. She laughed as she reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me down to her level, and we fell in a tangle of limbs that rolled around on the ground, neither of us able to come out on top. I couldn’t beat her, and she ended up looking down on me with a slight smile on her face.

“Huh. I think I get it now, then. Okay, Araragi. You’ll save me. Then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t save everyone, right? If you had to choose between saving me or saving Kiss-Shot, which one would you choose?”

I opened my mouth to answer --

\-- but nothing came out.

There was no acceptable answer for me to Panacea’s question. There wasn’t a single world where I could say ‘of course, I would save you’, or ‘of course, I would save Kiss-Shot’. Panacea flicked my nose from her position on top of my chest with that same smile on her lips, the one that I couldn’t understand no matter how hard I tried to.

“Yeah, see? You can’t choose. It’s totally understandable, but Kiss-Shot and I live in two different worlds. You can’t be both a vampire and a parahuman. It’s sad, but it’s simply a fact of life.”

The way she said it was so matter of fact. So sure of herself. Like nothing in the world could possibly change her mind. Amy Dallon was 100% positive that there was no way for me to be both a parahumand and a vampire. But I hated her sad smile more then I hated straddling the line.

“I’m sorry, but I refuse.”

“Eh?” She blinked. “What?”

“I’ll do it. I’ll save both of you. I’ll be friends with both of you. Even if it’s impossible, even if it’s absolutely absurd, there’s no reason for me to give up so easily. I told you before, didn’t I?”

I smiled at her, reaching for her hand. She let me grab it, staring at me with a completely confused look on her face. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t understand what I was saying, it’s that she didn’t want to understand.

Amy Dallon didn’t want to be saved. Even if she complained, even if she grew frustrated, she never expected anyone to help her. She went through everything in life alone, and never let a single person inside of her heart.

“Nobody I know has died. Nobody I know is terminally ill. I’m as fit as you could expect of any teenage boy.”

“Hah, you’re a bit more than that now, aren’t you? Even when I was dying, I saw how fast you moved.”

She looked annoyed. She didn’t like the words that I had chosen to speak, because they hit too close to her heart.

“So if you have troubles, I’ll be there. If you’re sick, I’ll come to cheer you up. If you’re in pain, I’ll make it go away. That’s all there is to it, right?”

“You’re a bit warped, Araragi. Isn’t it overkill to promise all that to a girl you’ve barely known for three days?”

I shook my head.

“No, there’s absolutely nothing I can do to repay what you’ve done for me. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. Even if you’re angry at me, I’ll still be your friend.”

“What if… what if I’ve done something really bad? What if I’m so twisted inside that it’s like clockwork in my heart?”

“Then I’ll untwist your heart enough so that you can be happy.”

She punched my chest. “Shut up. Stop saying things like that.”

“Even if it’s scary, I’ll try to help you.”

Her fist hit me again. I couldn’t see her face anymore, her hood covered her eyes so well. But I could see the tears falling from them, as she punched me over and over.

“Stop it. You’re lying.”

“No matter what. I promise I’ll be there for you.”

I reached up, pulling her hood down. She looked at me, with a nose spotted with freckles, eyes that were wet with tears, and brown hair that was more frazzled then curly. Her nose was sharp, curving slightly upwards, and her lips were pressed together in a firm, thin line.

“Shut up. It’s not true. Nobody can do things like that.”

My hand touched her cheek, and I wiped away the lines that had covered her face when she was crying. I smiled at her, and she slapped me. Ahh, Amy, that kind of hurts, you know? Even if I’m a vampire, I can still feel pain. I just feel it a bit less than others.

“Nobody can do anything, right? ‘It can’t be helped’. ‘Sorry, it’s out of my control’. None of those statements are true. You can do anything you set your mind to. That’s why I’ll help you.”

Her fists became weaker as she hit me, over and over, until it was barely even worth being called a fist. She was just hitting my chest with open palms. Amy Dallon wasn’t weak in any way, but she was fragile all the same.

“Why? Why would you go this far for someone as useless, as stupid, as worthless as me?”

“You’re not worthless, Panacea. You’re actually really strong. You changed me so irrevocably that when I see someone crying in front of me, I can’t help but think ‘how can I make them stop?’. Even for someone as worthless and irrelevant as me in the grand scheme of things, a person so plain and ordinary with grades so mediocre that calling them ‘average’ would be a joke, you made me change completely. So…”

I grabbed her hand.

“Cry a little bit less, okay?”

She giggled, a hiccup emerging during it, and tightened her grip on my hand. “Yeah. Okay. Try… Try to be a little bit safer, though. I… I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Of course, Panacea.

Besides.

_It’s not like there’s「anything in this world」that can hurt me._

_hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded_

Oshino had left, so we entered the abandoned building together after Panacea stopped crying. She blamed me for it, glared at me, and then said that she was coming along to meet Kiss-Shot so that way I wouldn’t be killed.

I didn’t really get what she was saying, because Kiss-Shot wouldn’t hurt me in 10,000 years. She was my master, but she was still my friend. We entered a classroom, and saw Kiss-Shot, dangling her legs off the edge of a desk as her eyes peered at the door. She lit up when she saw us, waving her hand excitedly from her position upside down.

“Koyomi! Oooh, snacks! How are you doing?”

I smiled at her, hefting the case in one hand and the casket in the other. “Yo. I have everything you need to be unsealed.”

“Kyaa~ the very serious Koyomi has allowed me to go free! What an amazing person, to do it so fast!”

“Woah, you’re acting a bit weird, Kiss-Shot. What’s this new character?”

“I was trying something out! It didn’t seem to work though,” she said, tapping her lip as she remained hanging upside down. “I thought that everyone liked cutesy characters, but it looks like it’s untrue.”

“That happens sometimes,” I said. “People have different beliefs and loves of character archetypes.”

Panacea rolled her eyes at my statement, and wandered off, leaning against a wall as she pulled out her phone. Panacea, didn’t you say you came here to protect me? Are you planning to protect me from message board trolls?

“Hm hm! I agree with that, Koyomi! But I see you’ve brought snacks! Don’t worry, I won’t take any of your snacks, so I’ll just make do with my own body!”

She hummed as she held the cases close to her, and then looked at me with an imperious eyebrow.

“Hey, Koyomi. I’m gonna be hungry after I finish this. Can you bring me some snacks?”

I nodded, tapping Panacea’s arm. She looked up at me with an arched eyebrow, before sighing and shoving her phone into her pocket. We left the abandoned building and I crossed my arms behind my head as we walked, silently towards the convenience store.

I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“You were wrong.”

“Hm?”

“You were totally wrong about Kiss-Shot. She’s not dangerous at all, she’s just trying to be happy,” I said to her, and she rolled her eyes at me, looking away. “Hey, what’s with that face?”

“Araragi, her happiness is _twisted_. You do see that, don’t you?”

I didn’t. She just wanted snacks, and a peaceful life. I wasn’t sure what I wanted at all. That’s not all that different, right? To me, it seems exactly the same as what I wanted. As what Panacea wanted.

"If I can untwist her happiness, then isn't it all right?"

"You can't untwist something broken."

"I've fixed dozens of children's toys for my little sisters and their friends, ough. so I can definitely do that.”

She smiled at me, rolling her eyes.

“You shouldn’t say things that you can’t keep up with.”

“Even Velocity can’t outpace my optimism.”

“Then shouldn’t you think about what you can do to outpace it yourself?”

“Woah, hey, you can’t outrun happiness.”

The convenience store was open, and walking inside gained me a dirty look from the man behind the counter as we picked up our snacks. Actually, wait a minute, isn’t that the same guy from yesterday? Doesn’t he recognize me at all?

He did not. He grumbled something that even with vampire-enhanced hearing I couldn’t catch. Paying for our snacks, we left, already heading back towards the abandoned building. Panacea’s phone buzzed, and she opened it, making a face.

“Ah. I have to go back to work. There’s some dangerous stuff going on in the ER.”

“Isn’t it pretty late? Shouldn’t you go to bed?”

She shrugged, stretching her arms above her head. “Hmm, normally, yes I would go to bed around this time. But I’m feeling pretty awake for some reason, and there’s no harm in going back to the hospital.”

“You should take some time for yourself, though. Working all the time can’t be good for you.”

She barked out a laugh, rolling her eyes at my words. She looked at me after a second, brown eyes that were flecked with green staring into my plain red.

“Don’t overthink it, Araragi. I’ve got some time off coming up, so I’ll take that with _relish_. Just don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

She waved at me as she walked away, and I waved at her back as she left. I had snacks, after all. Kiss-Shot had mentioned she wanted some, and I hummed as I walked back inside the abandoned building. I couldn’t find Oshino, or Kiss-Shot inside immediately, but that was fine. They had their own things going on, so I wandered around for a bit.

My feet moved towards a sound I heard in the distance, and I walked towards it. After all, Kiss-Shot couldn’t have gone _too _far away, it’s not like there was anywhere else for her to go. The hallway felt like it was seven miles long, and it was starting to grate on my nerves. Seriously, I’m just trying to find my friend! Why’s the architecture of this place so labyrinthine anyways?! Isn’t it supposed to just be an ordinary building!? What are you trying to keep in here, the Minotaur or something?!

I continued walking towards the sound. All that was there was the clacking of my feet and whatever the sound I could only half-hear was. It would’ve been scary, but I knew this place at this point. The only four people who even knew where it was were me, Oshino, Kiss-Shot, and Panacea.

I knocked politely on the door that the sound was behind and heard a muffled response behind it. I opened the door.

My blood froze.

“Oh! Koyomi! You’re back! You took a bit of time, so I got a snack of my own!”

A chomping sound.

A sound of teeth biting into flesh.

There was a corpse in front of Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade. A corpse that I knew very well.

“Wh-what?”

“Yeah,” she said with a blood-filled smile, waving her arm around. “I was hungry, so I picked something up.”

She bit into the arm she was holding, tearing off a chunk of flesh. The bag in my hand dropped to the ground. She looked at me, blinking.

“What’s wrong? Do you want some? After all, it **was your kill**.”

Kiss-Shot was eating Alabaster Weiss.

Kiss-Shot was holding onto pieces of Alabaster Weiss and devouring them. She was covered in blood, and smiling brilliantly at me. Her bright red eyes stared into mine, and she frowned. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.

“What, did your snack not fill you up enough? I’m not giving you any of mine, you know.”

Panacea.

She thought Panacea was a portable snack that I took around with me. My only friend. Kiss-Shot assumed that she was just a sack of meat that I could eat.

She wasn’t human.

She was so far beyond human that my heart broke into pieces.

“You’re pretty quiet, Koyomi. Is something wrong?”

“You…. You-!!”

I ran.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but it’s true. I ran away from the monster known as Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade. I couldn’t bear the sight of her any longer, so I ran away. I ran through the building, out of it, and into the streets. I ran until I reached the boat graveyard, and then I hid inside of a boat, shaking. I couldn’t believe it.

I couldn’t process it at all. That the innocent, sweet girl that I’d saved was a monster. That she wasn’t even pretending anymore, that all the kind words she’d said to me, that all that she’d done for me--!!

It wasn’t because I was a human she liked.

It was because we were both 「monsters」. Not because she wanted to help me. Not because she wanted to be my friend. Not because she thought I was kind, or good, or noble for saving her. Just because I was the scion of Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire, I was granted a reprieve.

“My my, you’re looking lively,” said a voice inside my hiding place. “Did something good happen?”

A man with an aloha shirt and sandals appeared in the doorway of the wrecked ship’s cabin, waving nonchalantly. He had an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and a sad smile on his face.

“She’s a monster.”

“I _did _warn you about that, Araragi-san.”

“Yes, but--”

“--But you didn’t want to believe me? But you thought she had changed? Araragi-san, don’t be so naive, okay? Kiss-Shot is the vampire of vampires, an oddity so far beyond other oddities that her very presence warps reality into something different. Even though she was broken, you restored her. I had hoped…”

He shook his head, scratching the back of it with a smile.

“Maa maa, that doesn’t matter anymore though. The entity known as Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire has returned to her full strength, because of you.”

He looked at me.

“What are you going to do?”

I clenched my fists. I could barely breathe in her presence, barely think. What could I do? What could I possibly do to an existence so far above me that it standing in her presence was like a tsunami of power, a roaring wave of dominance that couldn’t be ignored or contained. There was no way I could stop her.

But…

“I want to beat her.”

“Oh?” Oshino smiled at me, leaning against the wall of the cabin.

“Even though I’m weak. Even though she’s helped me so much. I want to beat her. For everyone she’s ever harmed. For everyone she’s _going _to harm. Even if it’s…”

It’s an unhappy ending. It’s seriously messed up, right? That I have to fight someone who made me so much better than I was before.

“Even if it’s impossible, I have to try. Just… just because there are too many people in this city, that I… that I…”

Panacea.

Karen.

Tsukihi.

Mom.

Dad.

Tetsuo-san.

Sodachi.

The Wards, the Protectorate, Victor, Othala, even Oshino--!!!

I can’t let her hurt all of them. And in my soul, I already know she will. Even just being around her for that short period of time, in her full form, as her scion… I could feel myself wanting to help her. Thinking ‘it can’t be helped’, and justifying her actions. So I have to beat her. I have to stop Kiss-Shot before Kiss-Shot destroys the city.

“I’ll fight her,” I told Oshino. “I’ll fight her wherever she wants. I’ll put her down before she can hurt anyone else.”

He sighed in response, scratching his head. “Are you sure, Araragi-san? If Weiss was the final boss, then she’d be the secret bonus boss that you can’t beat without maxed stats. Can you even touch her?”

I smiled at him, and waved a hand.

Seven swords of blood slowly emerged from the cabin floor, as I pulled the red out of it, and Oshino’s eyes turned dark.

“Don’t, Araragi-san.”

I could feel my soul whisper happily as I used my power. The swords floated behind me, spinning slowly in the air in a circle, and I looked at them for a moment with a sad smile.

“If I go too far, just make sure to kill me before I do anything drastic, okay?”

I didn’t hear his response, and when I turned around again it was like nobody had been in the room with me the entire time.

_hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded_


	11. Cognition 1.11

  
  
  
I was cold. My body was like ice. I felt stretched out and too thin at the same time. The longer I had my power activated, the stranger I felt. I watched the swords I’d created spin lazily behind me, and then turned away from them. The room was silent, empty of anything.  
  
Nobody was here.  
  
This wasn’t like when I had been fighting Victor, or Hookwolf, or even Weiss - when there was always a place to return too, even if it was further away then here. I felt barren inside, like there was an emptiness in my heart that couldn’t be filled.  
  
_Araragi  
You were right. I’m going to stop her._  
  
Even writing those words made me want to cry. The thought of having to hurt Kiss-Shot was almost unthinkable to me, after what she had done for me. Her kindness, her softness to me…  
  
It was a lie so cruel it tinted my world with white.  
  
It was a lie. Every part of it had been a complete and utter lie - not a total fabrication, but enough of one that I knew the only reason she even considered me as a person was because she was on the verge of death and the brink of despair.   
  
A hawk of blood came over to me, and I reached out a hand to let it land on me. My body felt numb, empty of everything except for the power that ran through me. The blood that surrounded the area wreathed my mind’s eye like the birds I could create.  
  
It was kind of terrible.  
  
I don’t think anyone wants to know what everyone in a 500 meter radius is doing. Seriously, that’s such a massive range! What’s with this kind of totally off-kilter power that I’m just being given!? Isn’t there some sort of pause button that you can use on this sort of thing?!  
  
_Panacea  
What?_  
  
I didn’t reply to her. I felt cold. Dead inside, instead of just unnaturally alive. Kiss-Shot’s actions weighed heavily on my mind, and I could feel her nudging at our connection, trying to get me to open the door to my mind. I shut it even tighter, locking it. I didn’t want to speak to Kiss-Shot, even though in her mind she hadn’t done anything wrong. She was, after all, a vampire. Isn’t it natural for vampires to consume humans?  
  
I didn’t want it to be natural. I found it completely unnatural in every way - that sort of ending… Isn’t it too sad? Isn’t it too depressing for something so simple?  
  
Fighting Weiss had shown me that. Oshino was absolutely correct - the power of a parahuman and the power of an oddity don’t mix together at all. I could feel something inside of me shrieking every time I used my power, greedily asking for more, and more, until all that was left of me would be a husk that was once a person.   
  
It hurts.  
  
This sort of scenario… isn’t it too much? Isn’t it way too over the top for something so simplistic?  
  
_Panacea  
What did she do? Araragi?_  
  
Why? Why did it have to be Kiss-Shot who went mad? Why couldn’t it be someone unrelated to me? Like Lung, or Kaiser, or Skidmark? Why did it… I…  
  
350 meters away, someone entered the range of my divination. It was the girl from a day ago, who had been handing out fliers. I could ‘see’ her blood, the way she moved, and she was putting up fliers on the walls of ships. While I didn’t have eyes on that part of the process, I couldn’t help but smile.  
  
That was why I had to stop her. Not for myself, because I barely wanted to stop her at all. But for others. For all the other people in this city that she wouldn’t be able to control herself against, even if she wanted to. And it wasn’t even clear if she did want any form of control over her actions; Kiss-Shot was the kind of person to ‘take an action’ and ‘never regret it’. I’m not like that. I overthink things all the time. I brood too much. I can’t stop regrets from pouring through my being, even if they’re for people who have long since left my life.  
  
I wonder what you’re doing right now. I know you left school after the test answers were stolen, but… I hope you’re happy. I hope you’re safe.  
  
I hope you’re not mixed up in anything as absurd as this.  
  
_Araragi  
She devoured him. Weiss._  
  
Seven swords of blood still hovered around me, twisting endlessly as I watched them. The rivets of false iron made of red shined in the gloomy cabin I was in, and it reminded me of Kiss-Shot’s eyes. Of Weiss’ eyes. Of _my _eyes. A crimson so thick and vast it was like blood was what stayed in our eyes. For Weiss, was it because of his power? Because of the blood he’d spilled? Or something else altogether?  
  
For Kiss-Shot and I, it was so much simpler. Because we were vampires, we have red eyes. It’s the natural order of things, a vampire has to have red eyes otherwise they wouldn’t be recognized as such. I grabbed one of my swords, feeling the weight in my hand as I clutched onto it.  
  
I wish I hadn’t become a vampire. I wish I had just been able to… to be human, I suppose. It wasn’t as if I hated my vampirism or anything, but everything seemed so much simpler when I was a human. I had no enemies, even if I had no friends. I was…  
  
No, that’s absurd. I smiled a bit at the thought, watching my swords. I wasn’t happier as a human. It’s much better for me to be inhuman then for me to be a human.  
  
_Panacea  
Don’t do anything stupid, Araragi. You’ll definitely die._  
  
She’s right. I can’t fight Kiss-Shot on even ground, even if I wanted to. She was so much stronger than me, to the point of absurdity. The difference in our stats was like a level 1 character and someone with maxed stats. I was weaker then her in every way.  
  
But I was stronger than her in ways she couldn’t even comprehend. Not because I was so much better, but because I had these swords. This hand of mine… it glows with an awesome power.   
  
I grasped one of my swords.  
  
Its burning grip Kiss-Shot, it tells me to defeat you.  
  
_Araragi  
I won’t._  
  
It was like ice had been poured over my mind. My every pore was opened, my breath was so cold that I could see it. So, this is what Oshino had warned me about, huh? This sort of thing…  
  
I shivered.  
  
It shouldn’t happen to anybody. This must have been how Weiss had gone mad, the power of being an oddity as well as a trigger event. My nerves were fried, and my senses were heightened more and more every second. I was in so much pain it felt like dying, but it wasn’t that bad.  
  
I’d suffered worse in the past two days. I’d been hurt in more egregious ways in under twenty four hours. This wasn’t so bad.  
  
“Wooow~ it looks like someone else is training here too! What a scary looking power though, jeez. It sends shivers down my spine~!”  
  
I turned around, away from my swords. My eyes were dead. In front of me was a girl with short blue hair, a bandage around her right arm. She had on what seemed to be a schoolgirl's uniform, with cleats on her feet and a ball under her arm. Underneath her skirt I could see the edges of spats that she was wearing, and she was smiling brightly at me.  
  
I didn’t know this girl.  
  
“Hey, you’ve got a pretty scary look on your face, too. Are you doing alright there, cape-senpai?”  
  
My mind was filled with **Red**. I couldn’t understand what she was saying. I didn’t want to understand what she was saying.  
  
“Cape-senpai, are you listening?”  
  
That’s when the ball bounced off my head. My swords shattered into nothingness, and I fell over backwards, gasping for air as my body felt the whiplash of turning off my power. The girl leaned over me, a smile on her face.  
  
“Ahhh, I see, I see. Cape-senpai isn’t just a cape-senpai! He’s a drug-senpai, too! Wow, just my luck! I meet another cape and catch a criminal in the same hour! Kufufu, it looks like the luck is turning upwards for the newest cape on the scene, Devilgirl!”  
  
“I haven’t done any drugs in my entire life! Don’t assume things about people you’ve just met!”  
  
“Ehhh? You haven’t done any drugs at all? But Drug-senpai, then why are you shivering on the ground?”  
  
I couldn’t tell her that the overlap of my parahuman ability and my vampirism was negative for my soul. For one, it sounded absolutely ridiculous. For two, it made no sense whatsoever. I tried to sit up, and succeeded despite the shakiness and general worthlessness of my limbs at the moment. Leaning against the cabin bed, I looked up at the girl, sweat dripping from my face.  
  
“It’s… It’s just a side-effect from my power. It tires me out really quickly, that’s all,” I said with a smile, raising a hand in a peace sign. “I don’t have a cape name, sorry. I’m not that strong at all.”  
  
“Hm, hm! I see, cape-senpai! Fear not, for I Devilgirl, have dubbed you…”  
  
She paused, tapping a finger to her mouth. Then she snapped her fingers, grinning widely and pointing them at me.  
  
“Alucard-senpai!”  
  
“What.”  
  
“You have swords of blood, you know? That’s totally like Alucard from Symphony of the *****, only for the PrayStation!”  
  
“Woah, you can’t just break copyright like that! We’ll get in serious trouble for referencing works outside of this one!”  
  
“Ehhh? Alucard-senpai, isn’t this just a parody of two original works that doesn’t really make that much sense? Like, we don’t really get much out of not breaking copyright laws, right? We’re already _totally_ breaking them, so it doesn’t matter much.”  
  
“That doesn’t even make any sense! Stop breaking the fourth wall so carelessly, our viewership will drop even lower than it already has! This kind of gag can easily be overused, you know!? That’s why author’s notes are the most obnoxious part of any story, because they constantly make fourth wall gags when they include the characters!”  
  
I frowned at her, before tapping the side of my chin, smirking.  
  
“Besides that, what kind of name is Devilgirl, anyways?! Every part of you is human, so you’re not even a little bit devil-like at all! Isn’t that just a reference to some obscure manga hero from the 1970s, anyways?”  
  
She nodded, twice, smiling softly as the bandages on her eyes twitched.  
  
“Hm, hm. As expected of Alucard-senpai, he really does get it. I’m Devilgirl because of the devil sealed in my right arm, obviously,” she said, raising her right arm and clenching her bandage covered fist. “When I remove this bandage, senpai, I unleash the beast sealed within me! It’s totally dangerous, so don’t get too close when I do!”  
  
She moved to unseal her arm, smiling dangerously, and ripped off the bandage --!!  
  
“Woah, hey. Nothing happened, Devilgirl.”  
  
“It… it doesn’t usually do that. I’m sorry, senpai. I guess you’ll have to see how amazing I am another day~”  
  
“No no, you can’t just walk back on your gimmick like that. Aren’t you going to apologize?”  
  
“B-but… I-it’s never done this before! Th-that’s not fair, Alucard-senpai!”  
  
“Devilgirl, please apologize to me for your ineptitude.”  
  
“Bwuh… Bwuh…”  
  
She sniffled. I could see the start of tears forming at the edge of her eyes.  
  
“Oh, please don’t become a Devilgirl crybaby. I couldn’t stand it if you were a Devilgirl crybaby.”  
  
“Ehh? Senpai, didn’t you just make a joke? Wasn’t that a joke right there? From the very serious and edgy Alucard-senpai?”  
  
“...Oy, don’t think I didn’t notice you slipping in the edgy right there.”  
  
She smiled brightly at me, extending a hand. I took it gingerly, and she heaved me to my feet, humming all the while. Her mask was ridiculous, honestly - it was a bandage around her eyes and a half mask with an angry looking mouth on it covering her mouth and part of her nose. I could only tell she was smiling because of the way it crinkled at the corners.  
  
“So, Alucard-senpai, what super dangerous cape are you going to fight today?”  
  
“I didn’t come here to fight,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “I was just thinking some things over.”  
  
“Really? Is that true? Because the wondrous Devilgirl noticed Alucard-senpai fighting Victor and Othala a few days ago. Then Hookwolf two nights ago, was attributed to Alucard-senpai. And then some unknown cape was _killed _in a totally brutal cape fight very near here, Alucard-senpai. Are you sure you don’t know anything about it? Because all the reports described _you_ as the person fighting. An ordinary high schooler, with black hair and a domino mask (would look better with less expressive eyes), a hoodie with no shirt on underneath and a peace sign on a necklace that hangs at his chest. Black jeans, black sneakers with white trim. That hair, that flair--”  
  
“--I guess I am the new cape then,” I replied, sighing. I hadn’t expected anyone to find me at all, let alone anyone as _bizarre _as Devilgirl. “I’m not really good at it, though. I haven’t been planning to fight anyone at all.”  
  
Except for Weiss.  
  
And now Kiss-Shot.  
  
And I guess Victor and Othala.  
  
...Wait, don’t I plan out a lot of fights? Am I a secret battle maniac in disguise?! I’ve never been really serious about fighting, even when I was a strong believer in justice, so is this my hidden trait coming out? Will I have to meditate for seven days to become even stronger?  
  
“Yeah, but you’re _scary_ good at it senpai! People are saying you’re trying to establish your territory so that your new and spooky gang can move in! That’s why I’m here, to take you in before you can add another group to the mix!”  
  
She got into a boxing stance. I scratched the back of my head. Her ball rolled around on the floor.   
  
“Let’s not get into that right now,” I said. “I don’t really want to fight anyone. I was just trying to help out a friend.”  
  
“With murder, senpai? Isn’t that kind of an overstep for new friends?”  
  
I twitched. I didn’t want to explain that was my trigger event, because my powers seemed too strange with that being the basis of them. Getting into it would just be confusing - better for everyone to think I’m a Brute/Changer instead of a pure Shaker. One looks way less dangerous than the other.   
  
“It went too far. He hurt someone I cared for. I made sure he wouldn’t do it again.”  
  
Devilgirl tapped her chin as I spoke, thinking it over before nodding happily. The bandage around her eyes fell a bit, and I could see a hint of orange eyes behind it, before she quickly scrambled to cover them again, a flush on her cheeks.  
  
“Senpai! You can’t be trying to break the unwritten rules like that, you know?! It’s seriously terrible to casually try to unmask another cape!”  
  
“Unmask you? Your mask was falling off! Try finding better materials!”  
  
“Grr… Alucard-senpai has bested me yet again! As your disciple in cape arts, I’ll bow before your wisdom!”  
  
“Woah, disciple?! You’re 1000 light years away from facing me! Don’t go around spouting off ridiculous statements like that where others can hear them!”  
  
“Hmm, hmm. As expected of Alucard-senpai, he’s seriously a genius. I mean top class in intelligence really. I’m not even the least bit surprised there’s a Thinker component to his power.”  
  
I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling a headache coming on. This girl was impossible to deal with. She peered beyond my fingers, even if I couldn’t see her eyes behind the bandage covering them I could tell they were wide.  
  
“Woah, hey senpai. You’re looking kind of tired. Do you want to take a break from our friendly banter?”  
  
“Friends? I don’t even know you at all,” I said to her, raising an eyebrow above my domino mask. “How could we just be friends like that?”  
  
“Hmm, well friendship is pretty easy I think. I say ‘hello Alucard-senpai!’, you say ‘Hello Devilgirl-chan. Please observe as I stretch out my impressive abs, and show off my gorgeous biceps. Do you want me to take a shower for you, Devilgirl-chan? Because I most definitely would love-’”  
  
“Woah, stop adding such messed up traits to my character. I sound like some kind of predator.”  
  
She blinked behind her mask again, tilting her head to the side as her face pointed at me. I shifted uncomfortably under the gaze of a person I couldn’t see.  
  
“No, you’re definitely a predator Alucard-senpai. Even the devil in my right arm can sense it. It’s probably something totally ordinary, like-”  
  
“It’s definitely not little girls so please don’t say anything like that!”  
  
A frame of red beat through my heart.  
  
“...I was going to say old dirty books, but now I’m a bit suspicious, Alucard-senpai.”  
  
I shook my head, scratching the back of my hair. “It’s absolutely not suspicious at all, Devilgirl-chan. Please observe as I stretch out my impressive abs-”  
  
“Ahh, sorry Alucard-senpai, but I’m absolutely not into you that way,” she said, bowing before me with clasped hands. “I’m sorry, but I’m only interested in your body.”  
  
I cringed before her words, feeling them shatter my self-confidence like a spear through the gut. Devilgirl-chan…  
  
“But don’t worry! I’ll still be your most trusted disciple!”  
  
Like an angel from god, she reached out her hand to me, a smile hidden beneath her mask. I could feel tears forming at the edge of my domino mask. Devilgirl-chan-!!  
  
She clasped at my hand, and in that moment, I truly knew that we were brothers. I wanted to unmask before Devilgirl-chan, but I felt it would be a bit impolite. Her smile grew brighter under her mask, as we clasped hands together like lovers making a pact.  
  
“I promise to always teach you new things.”  
  
“I promise to learn these new things with gusto.”  
  
It was a beautiful scene. Something straight out of a romance novel was happening between me and Devilgirl.  
  
“I promise to help you to the best of my ability.”  
  
“I promise to follow your commands to the best of mine.”  
  
Devilgirl and I were bonded by something deeper than simple ‘friendship’. Friendship is the kind of thing that’s barely even skin deep in the end, it’s totally possible that friendships can break in half with barely the weight of a math textbook on top of them. Something as simple as a question answered correctly shatters what was once the most unbreakable bond.  
  
“And together, we promise--”  
  
“--to help each other to the end of our days.”  
  
We both lifted our hands together, and broke free of each other, stepping back a few times. Then she blushed, and looked away from me. Woah, Devilgirl-chan, are you okay? As my disciple, you can’t be so weak to men, you know?  
  
“Devilgirl, I’m going to fight something that’s almost akin to a god.”  
  
“Wow, Alucard-senpai, that sounds pretty impressive. Also incredibly dangerous, so when you do please make sure that I’m not anywhere around!”  
  
I laughed, holding a finger up to my nose and pushing up my domino mask.  
  
“Kufufu, do you think me a fool, disciple? Naturally, the battle will take place later tonight so that way I have some time to prepare. I’ll strike at her home, like a villain. Then pin her down, like a fiend. Then remove her--”  
  
\--Limbs.  
  
Remove her limbs.  
  
I froze, my smile dropping, my laughter fading. I was no better than Alabaster like that. I was the exact same as the person I had killed for her.  
  
“...I won’t do anything to her,” I said quietly, looking at my hands. “Even if I wanted to, I… I don’t want to do anything bad to her.”  
  
“Isn’t that good, Alucard-senpai? It’d be pretty messed up to do that to anyone, especially someone you like.”  
  
“Yeah,” I said so softly I could barely hear it. “I won’t do that to her.”  
  
I can’t hurt Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire. She was the person who had completely changed my life, and I… even though it was impossible, even though it was ridiculous--!!  
  
“I want to save her,” I finally admitted, to a girl I barely knew. “I want to save her even though she’s done so many bad things. Even though she could do so many bad things. Even so-!!”  
  
I want to save her.  
  
I _have _to save her.  
  
I don’t care if there’s no world where I can save both Panacea and Kiss-Shot. I’ll make one if necessary. Devilgirl smiled at me beneath her mask, raising her bandaged hand in a peace sign.  
  
“Well, I’m glad Alucard-senpai’s feeling better! I’ll be training around here for a while, so please take care of me if you have the time!”  
  
“Don’t worry Devilgirl-chan, I’ll be there to help you out soon. I just have to take care of some things first.”  
  
Kiss-Shot.  
  
I’m sorry, but…  
  
I’m going to beat you. Not because you’re a bad person, or because you’ve done bad things. But because it’s the only way I can save you.  
  
  


_hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded_

  
  
  
  
Devilgirl left my hideout in good spirits, and had written down her phone number so that way I could contact her. With the “Amazing Devilgirl” now securely inside of my cell phone, I felt a bit more content, but not exactly happy. With what had happened to me, I don’t think happiness is the right reaction. It’s…  
  
It’s hard.  
  
It’s hard and nobody understands.  
  
Panacea, Oshino, Devilgirl -- none of them seem to get that part of me knows Kiss-Shot is right. That the righteous anger I felt as I saw her eating wasn’t because she was eating a human, but because it was _mine_. My kill. My victory. My food. That it wasn’t unreasonable for her to think of Panacea as a snack that I had following me around, because isn’t that what Oshino was to her? Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade is a monster among monsters, one that I can’t begin to understand.  
  
I left my hideout. It was night, and the air was cool on my skin. The darkness settled around the boat graveyard like a vast cloak, almost making the place eerie in how black it had become. It was a depressing setting, but it was one that I felt almost at home in.  
  
My powers were affecting my mind. Twisting it, shifting my thought processes to be more accommodating of the things they wanted me to do. To eat others, to harm others, to be stronger than others…  
  
“Hey,” a voice said from behind me, and I felt a hint of fear. “Who are you?”  
  
I turned around.  
  
It was another girl, with pale blonde hair, wearing a spandex white leotard with a skirt and a golden belt. On her head was a spiked crown, and her white cape floated elegantly behind her as she flew downwards towards me.  
  
“I know that a lot of capes use the Boat Graveyard to test their powers, but you… I’ve never seen you before,” she said to me, her eyes squinting dangerously. “And what’s with that _costume?_ You’re just wearing ordinary clothes and a domino mask. Are you even trying to hide your identity?”  
  
“I… I…” I said eloquently in response, adequately conveying my thought process. “It’s a work in progress.”  
  
She giggled, landing on the ground without a sound, her white knee high boots touching down gently. Playing with a stray strand of hair, she arched an eyebrow at me.   
  
It was Glory Girl. No, that's really a bad name for her; even if I refer to Panacea mentally as 'Panacea', such terminology leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It was Amy Dallon's sister.  
  
...I have to make a good impression, but I absolutely cannot as the new cape in Brockton Bay. As Panacea's only friend, I can't help but think that if I gave Victoria a bad impression, she'd smash me into the ground.  
  
“So, do you have a name, new cape?”  
  
I shook my head in response, and she laughed again, putting her arms behind her head with a wide smile. The aura of fear that had been surrounding me suddenly lifted, and I felt a weight I didn’t know remove itself from my back.  
  
Was this her power? That fear… it reminded me of something more dangerous.  
  
It reminded me of Kiss-Shot.  
  
“I don’t have a name,” I said in response, scratching the back of my head. “But Alucard works fine, I think.”  
  
“Alucard, huh?” She tilted her head to the side, staring at me curiously. “Isn’t that a video game reference or something?”  
  
“No, no, it’s because my powers involve blood, okay? It’s not a copyrighted reference in anyway.”  
  
“No, I’m pretty sure it’s from a manga or someth-”  
  
“No! It’s totally a new name that I just came up with! I’m definitely not using a name some idiot I met earlier tonight gave me on a whim!”  
  
Silence fell, and she shuffled awkwardly, before sighing and crossing arms with a huff.  
  
“Fine, ‘Alucard’. I’m here to deliver a warning. You’re on notice.”  
  
“For what?”  
  
She looked at me. We looked at each other. Blue framed my mind.  
  
“For killing a cape. For fighting capes. For being a vigilante in a city that hates vigilantism. You know, the usual, right?”   
  
She scratched the back of her neck, staring at the stars for a moment. Her teeth were biting into her lip so hard I was worried it might split, and eventually she let out a growl of frustration.  
  
“It’s unfair, I know. It’s stupid, too. You’re at least _trying _to help out, even if you’re doing it in a totally ridiculous way. Like, why are you fighting Hookwolf? You want glory that badly, Alucard?”  
  
I didn’t want glory. I didn’t want anything, really. I just--  
  
“I just wanted to help someone.”  
  
\--It’s so saccharine it makes me want to die. So ridiculously naive I can’t help but be embarrassed when the words leave my lips. But it’s true. Isn’t it alright to want to help others? But as I was lost in my thoughts, she snorted, tossing her hair back.  
  
“Help someone? You’re an idiot. You’re so stupid it’s actually shocking. You’re a killer, Alucard. You _killed _Alabaster.”  
  
No I hadn’t. Alabaster Weiss was dead long before I had showed up. The interaction between his power and oddities… it was terrifying. It sent shivers up my spine, just remembering it, just _thinking _of what he could do. The reason that parahuman power and supernatural didn’t mix was right there in front of me, and I was too stupid and ignorant to comprehend it until I had to deal with it myself.  
  
“So you should join the Wards! For protection, of course,” she said with a smile, extending a hand. “After all, you’ve fought a ton of Empire 88 capes so far, right? They’ll all be gunning for you now.”  
  
It was true. But at the same time, it rang with such falsehood it left ashes on my tongue. I looked at her with a raised eyebrow, and her shoulders sagged, as she turned away.  
  
“Hmph! Well, if you don’t want to join the Wards, then I don’t have any reason to talk to you at all! It’s not like you’re interesting anyways, you know?! You’re just some two-bit nobody who lucked into an _insane _power! Idiot! Stupid! Dumbass who doesn’t know he’s going to die!”  
  
Woah, what’s with this tsundere routine? Glory Girl, isn’t this a bit much? Like, aren’t you over-reacting a bit to something as small as my disagreement?  
  
“Aaaagh! Just say something already! Call me mean! Or inept! Tell me I’m bad at my job, and that I can’t get anyone to do anything, and I’ll _never _amount to anything in life!”  
  
“I really don’t think all those things though,” I said in response, the tip of my hair twitching. “I’m sure you’ll be perfectly happy once you graduate.”  
  
“Hmph. I doubt you think that. You probably think that I’m one of those people who peaks in high school, huh? Well let me tell you, I haven’t even _begun _to peak. This? Right here?”  
  
She flexed her arm.  
  
“This isn’t even top of the line. I’m nowhere near my end goal! Yeah! You’re right! I’m totally better than what that idiot told me! I’m nowhere near that petty or shallow, right? He’s just overreacting again!”  
  
...Glory Girl-san, are you using me to judge your relationship problems? Is this really what you’ve fell to, in the depths of your despair?  
  
“Haha, geez, what was I worried about, anyways? Hey, Alucard, come yell at the sky with me.”  
  
“What?”  
  
She looked at me, and in the blink of an eye white covered my vision.  
  
“It always helps me feel better whenever anything bad happens to me. I saw some guy doing it in the street once, that’s all. He was crying, and clenching a fist as he looked up at the sky and shouted ‘what’s wrong with being bald?!’ And… I’m going to be honest with you, Alucard.”  
  
She wiped a tear from her eye. I couldn’t believe she was actually crying. Panacea, what on _Bet _is wrong with your sister?  
  
“It… It really moved me. There’s nothing wrong with being bald, right?! There’s nothing wrong with having an on-again-off-again relationship, either! Just because Gallant’s a loser doesn’t mean I have to be!”  
  
She cupped her hands, and yelled into the night.  
  
_“IT’S OKAY TO BE SINGLE! DON’T GIVE UP!”_  
  
Her voice echoed back, the distant emptiness of the water not really doing much for her. All that we could hear for a few seconds was the bouncing of her voice, until the single note left faded away.  
  
She looked at me expectantly, and I blanched. I faced outwards, cupping my hands around my mouth, and paused. What could I say? There wasn’t really anything I regretted, was there?  
  
…  
  
There were a few things I’d regretted. Like, seriously, seriously regretted. I’m going to cry if I have to think about them any longer, so I’ll just pretend like it didn’t happen.  
  
But there are some things I can’t let go of.  
  
_“THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH LOVING YOUNGER WOMEN!”_  
  
My words also echoed around, but I could feel a look of disappointment faced upon me.  
  
“Alucard, wasn’t that a totally messed up thing you just said? Wasn’t that something that would only be said by losers and creeps who follow around innocent girls in an attempt to seduce them?”  
  
“Gloririri Girl,” I replied, placing my hand on her shoulder, as I gave her a thumbs up with a small smile. “I assure you, there’s nothing perverted about appreciating the female form (of women your own age).”  
  
“No, hey wait, didn’t you add something extra on there?”  
  
“No, I bit my tongue.”  
  
“You did it on purpose!”  
  
Ah, she caught me in my ruse. I let my hand fall, and cupped my hands around my mouth again, breathing in deeply.  
  
_“WHAT’S WRONG WITH HELPING OTHERS?”_  
  
My voice echoed again, bouncing around the ships that were trapped in the barren wasteland that was the boat graveyard. I could feel her eyes on me once again, and I turned to look at the girl in white, whose eyes seemed sad.  
  
“You want to help others? You’re not doing a very good job of it, are you?”  
  
One fatality on record. One critical injury on record. One person wounded in action because of me.  
  
“I just want to help others. Is that a crime?”  
  
“The way you do it? In this city? It’s a sin, Alucard.”  
  
I didn’t believe that. I rejected it out of hand. This city, it wasn’t so bad. Even if Panacea hated it, even if Kiss-Shot hated it, there were so many wonderful things inside of it.  
  
Kiss-Shot.  
  
Panacea.  
  
Both of these people are dear to me, and I don’t want either of them to be hurt in the coming conflict. But…!  
  
I clenched my fists. It’s not a sin. It’s not a sin to help others, to be hurt for others, to be selfless. That’s just being polite, right? That’s just how you’re supposed to show your gratitude to others, isn’t it? I know it’s not, and a vague face blurred out in my memories is admonishing me with a small smile for it, but I haven’t the faintest idea who she is.   
  
“There’s a friend of mine out there,” I said to Glory Girl, “She’s sad all the time. She’s lonelier than anyone I’ve ever met. But more than that, she’s _scared_.”  
  
Scared of reaching out.  
  
Scared of opening up.  
  
Scared of being alone.  
  
Scared of dying.  
  
Scared of living.  
  
Scared of herself.  
  
Scared of others.  
  
“She’s so terrified all the time it’s astounding. I genuinely can’t believe she can get up with a smile on her face every day. But even so, she does.”  
  
I don’t give a damn if Kiss-Shot’s so monstrous that it seems staggering.  
  
“Going outside? Staying in? Trying to fight? She can’t do any of them without shaking in fear.”  
  
I don’t care if Panacea’s so fragile that every time I see her she falls apart a little more.  
  
“But in spite of it, she does all of that. In spite of her fears, she goes out. I…”  
  
I’m not a person born to save others.  
  
But I’m a person who can take on others burdens and bear them without crying.  
  
“I want to help her. I’m going to help her. Not tonight, but soon, I’ll save her from all the things that make her sad. What’s so wrong about that?”  
  
She blinked at me, scratching her cheek as she thought. The wind whispered through the empty spaces between the ships, and her sigh was so quiet I could barely catch it.  
  
“That’s not being a hero. Aren’t you just being selfish? You’re taking on her burdens like she can’t carry them, because you think you can deal with them better. Isn’t that the definition of selfishness, Alucard?”  
  
It’s not.  
  
It’s not at all.  
  
“That’s what a hero does, right? They deal with the burdens that people can’t deal with themselves.”  
  
“What’s with this high-class definition of heroism from someone as brutal as you? A hero’s someone who takes out the bad guys. _You _did that.”  
  
Not because I wanted to. I never wanted to kill Weiss, to break him so brutally that he could never get up again. I never wanted to see him eaten like a gourmet meal. But I did. I saw all of that with my own eyes widening in horror, the shock and disgust on my face visible to everyone around me. It wasn’t good, or kind, but it had to be done.  
  
I won’t do it again.  
  
I won’t kill ever again.  
  
“No, a hero doesn’t do that. A hero doesn’t break someone down just because of a disagreement. You can’t fix everything, you know?”  
  
She laughed at that, floating a bit in the air as she lay down on a bed that didn’t exist, levitating in front of me.  
  
“Yeah, but I know someone who can. So it’s fine if I break them a bit, because of what they’ve done.”  
  
...What?  
  
Insane.  
  
That’s a totally insane statement. Completely ridiculous in every way.   
  
“You shouldn’t burden others with your problems,” I said in reply, watching her carefully. “If it can be resolved alone, it should be.”  
  
“You can’t crush your way into people’s hearts, Alucard,” she said to me without missing a beat, crossing her arms behind her head as she floated upside down. Her hair dangled in the air around her head like a thousand rays of sun, and her upside-down smile was dazzling. “That’s no way of meeting others in the middle. If two people can resolve something, then shouldn’t they work together on it?”  
  
What a warped viewpoint. It’s not enough that I succeed, I should make everyone around me succeed as well?  
  
Don’t give me that kind of twisted logic, Glory Girl. If ‘everyone succeeds’, then what happens to the person who fails? What happens to the one whose holding the others back, dragging them down, and can’t let go of it?  
  
Do we just drop them to the ground, and move on?   
  
Leave them behind, because they’re weighing us down?  
  
That’s ridiculous. If two people can resolve something together, then it was easy enough to be resolved alone. Our viewpoints were at a complete clash, and I couldn’t believe in hers at all.  
  
“I disagree,” I eventually said, staring out into the distance. “Some things have to be resolved alone.”  
  
Even if I wanted help, I can’t ask for parahuman help when I’m going into a battle of the supernatural. Even if I don’t know when she’ll meet me, I know she’ll appear eventually. Even if I don’t want her too…  
  
She’ll find me.  
  
I can feel her running through the city. I can sense her curiosity as she looks down over them, staring at them with imperious eyes and a smile on her face. I can sense her searching for me in return, trying to track me down even though I didn’t want to be found.  
  
“I’m sorry,” I said suddenly. “I have to go.”  
  
I heard her try to speak, so I clotted my ears with blood to shut it out. I smiled at her over my shoulder as I walked away, waving slightly, and she stomped her foot in frustration.  
  
I have to defeat Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade. Because if I don’t…  
  
I’m not sure what I’ll do when I see her.  
  
I’m not sure what I’ll say when I see her.  
  
Will we cry? Will we embrace? Will we laugh? Or will we draw our line in the sand, and greet each other as friends as our blades strike at the enemy across from us?  
  
I don’t know at all. Every moment I spend alone is a moment that grows worse and worse with time. It’s a permanent tinge on my thoughts, one that drains me of energy and emotion every time I use my power.  
  
And yet, I can’t stop.  
  
Hey, Weiss…  
  
Is this what it felt like for you?  
  
He can’t answer me, though.  
  
  
After all,** I ripped out his heart and ate it.  
**  
  


_hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded_


	12. Cognition 1.12

Today it was cold on my skin and set my teeth shivering. A black wind had swept through the city last night, and it was looking for me. I could feel it, every time I looked at the sky, that yearning sensation in my soul that begged for forgiveness. That asked ‘Koyomi, where are you?’ with a cry so strong that it made me want to cry. I tried to block out that cry in my soul, but it sunk deep into the cracks and crevices of my existence and _pulled_, demanding an answer I didn’t want to give.

“Oh, hey Araragi-san. You’re not looking very lively, but it’s good to see that you haven’t killed anyone else.”

A man in a psychedelic aloha shirt stared at me sadly as I looked at him, my body shaking in my hideout. I couldn’t stand the lure, the _call _that Kiss-Shot was sending through the city. I wanted to see her. I needed to see her.

“Of course, it looks like your body’s starting to break down. You’re pretty unlucky, Araragi-san; that power of yours is insanely dangerous for a normal human, but with vampirism…”

I’m going mad.

There are 567,943 flecks of blood on the rust in the nearby area. I can sense all of them. I can tell where they are, and how hard it would be to move them into a more manageable form. My mind can’t take it, it’s clear. I’m sensing every aspect of blood inside of my body, and all the blood I casually release as a vampire.

“It’s not good for you,” he said quietly. “So you’ll have to take care of Kiss-Shot tonight.”

Tonight.

In under 24 hours I can see Kiss-Shot again. A smile started to slowly form on my lips, as a laugh bubbled in my chest. Kiss-Shot. I need to see her. I have to see her. She’s everything that matters in the world-

\--no, that’s wrong. That’s not my thought process at all. My mind blanked, like a white frame.

“I know it sounds scary, but you have to. So, what are your plans for the day, Araragi-san?”

“Probably nothing. I’ll just prepare.”

I said it in a monotone. The edges of my consciousness were covered in static. The conversations I’d had earlier felt muted and empty. I was dying.

“You don’t want to relax at all, Araragi-san?” He tilted his head at me, his cigarette dangling from his lips. “I think it’s important to relax before a climactic battle, you know? It’s important for the narrative.”

“This isn't a narrative. It’s my life.”

“Maa maa, you don’t get it at all Araragi-san. The narrative of your story is totally messed up from this,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “Even if you’re always supposed to meet Kiss-Shot, can you really help her like this?”

“Of course. I’ll save her.”

Saving Kiss-Shot is why I’m here. To save someone who’s totally irredeemable, who’s killed so many people -- that’s what I have to do.

“Are you sure, Araragi-san?” He crouched before me, removing his cigarette from his lips. “You’re dying. That power is too strong for someone like you.”

Someone like me.

It’s right.

I’m not worthy of this kind of power. Of the trust Kiss-Shot had put in me. I’m…

My fists clenched.

“Saving so many people in so little time…” He smiled a little bit. “You should think about yourself more often.”

I don’t know who I am. Or what I am. Parts of me are dying off and regenerating every second. I’m going insane the longer my powers interact. I can’t handle it at all.

A falcon of blood emerges from the distance, and it lands on my arm. I look at it, and it tilts its head. In the distance, I can feel someone walking over 24,183 microbes of blood as they approach my hideout. They’re wearing boots and something that brushes over the ground.

“We have movement. It might be her.”

My mind is fragmenting more with every second of my power being used. I turn it off, and shudder at the backlash, before my body regenerates itself and it’s like nothing happened at all.

“It’s not her, Araragi-san,” Oshino said gently. “It’s not going to be her because you’re meeting her at Winslow tonight. On the track field.”

“I am?”

“I told her what’s happening to you. She agreed to meet you. You can take it as you please,” he said, standing up and smiling at me as he put the cigarette back in his mouth. “Now, if you’ll excuse me Araragi-san, I have things to do and people to see that _aren’t _you sometimes. We’ve been spending a bit too much time together for an uncle like me and someone like you.”

“Are you insulting my looks?”

“What? No, it’s just you aren’t my type,” he waved over his shoulder as he left my hideout, looking at me again with sad eyes. “Don’t hurt whoever’s coming to visit, all right? Killing you… it wouldn’t…”

He didn’t finish his sentence, and left.

My body felt like knives stabbing into it thousands of times as I stood in this prison I had turned into a makeshift home. I hadn’t bothered to breath in three hours, and I suddenly started again after Oshino had left, remembering those small human things that I’d forgotten in my inhumanity.

A girl entered the hideout.

She was a bit shorter than me, pale with brown hair that was a bit frazzled, and with green eyes. A doctor’s coat covered her torso, and she was wearing boots that went up to her thighs. She looked at me with a frown, tilting her head.

“Ah, there you are Araragi. Are you okay?”

Panacea, why are you even here? Don’t you have better things to do then hang around me?

“I’m fine,” I said in reply, waving a hand. “Nothing can hurt me anyways.”

She peered at me, her eyes flickering across my body as she walked closer to me.

“You don’t _look _fine, Araragi. You look like a dead man walking right now.”

I was pale, unnaturally so. My skin felt like it was too tight on my body, and my eyes blinked rapidly. I smiled shakily at her, and took a deep breath. I could fix this, easily.

I forced the blood vessels in my body to start moving again, sending a rush of color through my skin and a jolt of energy so strong I jumped a little. It felt better than using my power, honestly - like this was what it was _supposed _to do, instead of what it actually did.

“See?” I said to Panacea, flexing an arm. “I’m fine. Completely and absolutely.”

Panacea and Kiss-Shot.

Kiss-Shot and Panacea.

They’re not ‘two sides of the same coin’, they’re ‘two entirely different coins entirely’. I understand that now, but even so… I’ve saved Panacea once, right?

It’s only fair to save Kiss-Shot once, then. That’s equivalent to what I’ve done for Panacea.

“...You’re not fine at all, are you?” She said quietly, fishing a cigarette out of her doctor’s coat and lighting it. “Oshino told me you triggered.”

Ah.

“He said you did it to save me. Isn’t… isn’t that a bit much? I’m not really that interesting, am I?”

I can’t reply to Amy Dallon. Maybe I could have before my mind started to shatter, but right now…

All I can think of is Kiss-Shot.

I can sense her searching for me, even now. Putting out feelers of power in places that she’s seen in my memories and thoughts, ones that dance down the Boat Graveyard like lines from a spider’s web. The amount of effort she’s going to in order to find me is almost touching, in a way - I’ve never had anyone put in this much effort for me. It’s sort of flattering.

“I triggered because I watched you die,” I said in response. “Isn’t it a natural reaction to try to save someone else?”

Even at the cost of my life, I’ll help her. It’s not that big of a deal, it’s just something I have to do. The obvious answer is to ‘help someone’, even if it costs you dearly. Because…

Because…

I don’t know.

I don’t know anything at all about why I am the way I am. I don’t understand at all why the way my parents raised me created this person. Is it really okay? To be like this? To be so… so…

_Listless._

_Empty._

_Barren._

I’m alive, so it’s fine. I’ll take all the suffering that’s needed, because no one else can withstand it. I can feel the weight of my own power on my back, like a tidal wave roaring to be unleashed. I shut it down, grabbing the leash that holds it back, and shove it deeper inside.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said to me, blinking. “You’re… you’re totally ridiculous.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t even care, do you? That you might have died. That everything could have gone horribly wrong, because you helped someone. You… You have no sense of self at _all_.”

I didn’t understand Amy Dallon. I blinked twice, then smiled at her.

“Is that so bad?”

“So bad?! Of course it is! You’re a _person_, Araragi! Don’t you realize that!? There are people who care for you! Who don’t want to see you hurt! So… for me…”

She looked up at me with wide eyes, biting her lip as she fidgeted for a moment. The wind inside the cabin was cold.

“Could you put yourself before others?”

I froze.

My mind was **red**.

I couldn’t understand something as absurd as what Amy had just said to me. Even for her, even for anyone-!!

“I-if you do,” she said, shivering a bit as she rubbed her arms. “I’ll… I’ll…”

She looked up at me, with a face filled with determination.

“I’ll let you touch my breasts!”

Wait.

What?

No, seriously, what? Amy, haven’t we just been over this? This isn’t that kind of story, you know? We don’t really do the whole fanservice thing all that much. It’s not like there’s a serious dislike of fanservice from some otherworldly power, so much as it just seems kind of crass, you know?

I looked at her, and then looked at my hands. I wanted to. I desperately, desperately wanted to touch Panacea’s breasts. But at the same time…

My eyes closed.

I breathed deeply.

Throughout these past few days, I’ve changed astronomically. I’ve become monstrous in so many ways, and human in so many others. There’s nothing different between me and those that surround me besides our own ideals and beliefs. Everyone in this city…

They’re trying.

They’re really, _really_, trying. So hard that it’s kind of absurd, the level of effort they’re putting into just barely succeeding.

This is a city filled with humans. And there are only two monsters in it that can shatter that sort of peace without even a thought. My heart screamed out for Kiss-Shot, even as I reached out for Amy’s breasts with closed eyes.

Kiss-Shot and I are alike in every way that matters. So alike it terrifies me, at times - every moment I spent with her was like waking up after a long dream, or rising out of water that you’d been under for too long.

I opened my eyes.

I smiled at Panacea.

“I’m sorry, but I refuse.”

It was a brutal, cutting sort of realization that struck at me to my core. I wanted to care, but I couldn’t. I wanted to love, but I was afraid of it. I wanted to be human, but I was scared of it.

There was only one person in this city that I truly cared about, and she was a monster.

Panacea-san, I apologize for misleading you, but…

You’re not the monster I’m looking for.

“Wh-what? That’s all? You won’t do it? You’re the one who said you had to do things like this before a climactic sequence.”

“This… this isn’t a young adult novel, Amy,” I said to her, my red eyes meeting her green. “It isn’t about this being a climactic sequence, or about the final boss, or any of that at all. I just don’t want to do something you’d regret.”

She would regret it.

Letting a monster like me into her heart.

The best thing to do is to push others away, so that way you can’t hurt them. I’ve learned this too well over the years - all others can do is cut brutally away at the pieces of your heart you’ve given to them, until there’s nothing left inside of them that was ever a part of ‘you’.

Ah, memories...

I really hope you’re doing well.

I know you’d be pleased to know how terrible my life has been since you’ve left it. It would probably make you more ecstatic then getting that perfect test score you were always chasing.

“Regret? Don’t be so… so…”

Stupid, was the word she was going to say. But she didn’t. She just looked at me with lonely green eyes, and hugged her arms around herself, shivering.

“Isn’t it cold?” She said, changing the subject abruptly. “Aren’t you cold at all?”

“I don’t feel anything at all.”

It wasn’t a true statement, but it could barely be rated as a falsehood either. It was just a simple fact that I told Amy, because I couldn’t comprehend anything else. This chill that cut to my bone, my skin didn’t feel it. My body didn’t need to generate warmth to survive, and in fact loathed it.

This ill wind…

It’s kind to me.

“S-so, what are you going to do?” She asked instead. “About Kiss-Shot. About Oshino. About _your life_, Araragi.”

“Well,” I replied with a thumbs up. “I suppose I’ll have to wing it!”

“What?”

“Yeah, winging it’s always worked out well for me. I’m incredible at improvisation, Amy. I’m not joking right now,” I said, waving a hand through the air. “If I wanted to be an actor, I could join Upright Citizens’ Brigade without even a second thought.”

“Wait a minute, aren’t they in New York?”

“With my kind of talent, they’d come to get me. I’m pretty amazing, you know?”

I brushed my thumb under my nose, nodding solemnly. My improvisation was actually pretty good - otherwise I wouldn’t be alive.

“Araragi, you’re…”

She looked at me, those green eyes flecked with amber filled with an impermeable sadness that I couldn’t decipher, no matter how long I stared into them. I wanted to help Panacea, but I really wanted to help myself. I was ‘using her’, just like she was ‘using me’. We’re both people who use others to drag ourselves up, even at great cost to them.

I’ve harmed her, immeasurably.

I can’t take that back. Panacea’s sadness right now is entirely my fault. But at the same time, when I look at her… I don’t feel bad about it.

“You’re the saddest person I’ve ever met.”

“I’m sorry Panacea, but the only thing I feel for you is lust.”

The words were the most true thing I’ve ever said. And I’ve never seen a sadder look on anyone’s face at something as brilliant and uplifting as the truth.

“Heh… I guess that makes sense,” she said with a sad smile that I couldn’t get rid of. “No matter what, I’m always at the end of the line anyways. I’ll be at your fight, again. I’ll help you if I can, again. And then…”

She bit her lip, turning away from me. Her back seemed incredibly strong in this moment, like she could carry the weight of the world on it.

“Maybe you’ll try to be happy.”

She left me here, in my private prison.

I waited.

Patiently, I waited.

I could feel Kiss-Shot’s presence darting around, dashing by me so close I could barely think when I felt it, the rampaging desire and need in my soul barely subsumed by my demand for the proper location.

I wanted to talk to her.

I wanted to talk to Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire. Not as a servant to his master, or as a man to a woman, but…

**「As a monster to a monster.」**

_hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded_

I walked alone to Winslow’s track field. It was as quiet as sin itself, a shocking thing for this city. Even if I wanted to say anything, I couldn’t. The emptiness was more peaceful then the screaming in my soul. I took a deep breath as I saw the lights in the distance, and a man in a hawaiian shirt with an unlit cigarette awaited me at the entrance to Winslow.

“Yo, Araragi-san,” he said, holding up a peace sign. “It’s been a while, how are you?”

“Fine,” I said in response. My body was cold. My mind was empty. “Let’s go.”

We walked in silence towards the track field, and I saw Panacea sitting in the bleachers. She waved at me, and I nodded at her. And when my feet touched the field, I felt it.

_Her_.

Kiss-Shot descended from the heavens with a serene smile on a perfectly elven face, her golden eyes dancing brilliantly at me as she landed on the ground. Her dress was as red as blood, with black feathers on her breasts and near her waist. She didn’t bother with shoes, instead wearing simple black tights that covered her legs. She was, in a word, perfect.

“Koyomi,” she said with a brilliant smile. “I’ve been looking for you, but you wouldn’t come.”

“Yeah,” I said. My mind was full of static. “Sorry.”

“Are you okay? Oshino said that you’ve… you’ve become a parahuman.”

She looked at me with sad golden eyes, and crossed the length of the track field in under a breath. Her hand brushed at my cheek, and I looked up at her. The night fell around us like it was sheathing a sword, and I couldn’t even sense Oshino moving away.

“I have. I control blood.”

“Ka ka ka, what a delightfully vampirish power! I wonder what wonderful things you can create with it, Koyomi! Will you show me?”

I dragged a sword of blood out of the ground, and it hung lazily in the air, before I twisted it, turning it from a sword into a dagger into a falcon before it came into my hand and I crafted a perfect rose. Kiss-Shot clapped after my performance, smiling wide.

“That’s pretty impressive, Koyomi. It makes me almost sad that you’ll die if you keep doing it.”

“That’s what I’m here to talk with you about,” I said, frowning as I crushed the rose. The blood seeped through my hand, and my skin absorbed it automatically, the vampire inside me greedily drinking it in as I stood. “Do you trust me?”

“Trust is the same as reliance, Koyomi,” she admonished me, waggling a finger as she took a step back. “The strong have no need for it.”

I didn’t agree.

I wanted to trust someone so badly. I wanted to trust her so much. Every part of me begged me to believe her, to try to understand this person who I cared for so much, but I couldn’t. She was a monster, same as me.

And I would never trust myself.

“But you can’t… you can’t just eat people, Kiss-Shot. It’s wrong, isn’t it? It’s definitely wrong.”

“Wrong? They’re not _people_, Koyomi,” her tone lectured at me, as she held a finger in the air. “They’re food. Snacks. Supplies for beings like us.”

“Oshino--”

“--A snack that talks too much.”

“Panacea--”

“--A snack that’s too close to you for my liking.”

“Koyomi--”

“--A snack who wanted to save a monster.”

Even then, I was a snack to you, Kiss-Shot? I clenched my fists as I looked at her. Tears ran down my face, and **red **fell on the ground. How is that true?! How could you say something like that!?!

“You can’t just _own _people! That’s not how free will works! That’s not how this city works!”

“This city? Free will? Koyomi, be honest with yourself,” she said, lazily tapping her foot to the ground and rolling her eyes. “You don’t care about others at all.”

“That’s not true.”

“Every person in this city is just sacks of meat, aren’t they? They don’t care about others. They walk through their day doing horrible things and ignoring the plights of those less fortunate than themselves.”

“Shut up. You’re wrong.”

“Even your precious ‘heroes’, in their cape fights… At least you tried to keep everyone else out of it. They’re not really doing anything heroic at all, are they? They’re just making sure that everyone can remain perfectly unhappy.”

“No. That’s a lie.”

She smiled at me softly, her fingers brushing under my eyes to wipe away the red that had run down my face.

“It’s not like anyone else you see matters to you as much as I do.”

She reached out to me through our connection, and I opened it automatically. My heart _soared _as her thoughts and feelings flowed through to me, her love for me, her _happiness _at seeing me again, her understanding that the two of us could accomplish anything.

I stepped away from her, breaking the connection with a gasp. I couldn’t handle it. That level of love, that level of belief…

I didn’t want it from her. She was too incredible for someone like me.

“Koyomi,” she said to me, spinning in a circle with a laugh. The ground that her feet touched turned into flowers with every step. “This is _our _city, now! We decide who lives! Who dies! Your snack, we can turn her into a hero beyond all other heroes! Even the snack that talks too much, we can make him into someone people will _listen _to, like you did! Even in your darkest moment, he came to help you, right? So we can help him too!”

She held out a bouquet of flowers to me with a wonderful smile.

“I can see why you love this city so much. As I flew over it, I felt it all. The fears, the hopes, the dreams -- they’re all so _beautiful _down there, Koyomi! And we can make them all so, so terribly happy if we just try! What a wonderful world that would be, wouldn’t it?”

No, Kiss-Shot.

That’s a world without free will.

A world with no passion. Where everything is decided by a single person, with ultimate power. It’s not the kind of world I want to live in.

“People like Weiss, like Hookwolf, we can make sure they never hurt anyone ever again! We can get rid of Lung and his ridiculous requirements on how parahumans and supernatural can’t mix, we can tell Kaiser that his supremacy is a lie when humanity’s ‘final form’ appears before him! We can make that perfect city you always dreamed of, where your sisters are safe and happy! Isn’t that… kind of amazing?”

It is.

But I don’t want that.

I looked at Kiss-Shot and her smile so brilliantly that it broke my heart into pieces.

“I can’t.”

“What?” She tilted her head at me in confusion. “Why ever not?”

“Because that would be inhuman. It would be a fake happiness.”

“Isn’t… isn’t that okay? Isn’t okay to just be happy?”

“Yeah, Kiss-Shot. It’s okay to be happy. But your dream, my dream… they’re twisted. That’s not the sort of happiness humans want to achieve.”

“But that’s fine, because we’re not human, right?”

That’s true, we aren’t human. We’re so far from human that it’s ridiculous. The way we can move, fight, even the way we exist -- it’s an existence so far beyond humankind that they can only dream of such things, even as capes.

“Just because we aren’t human, doesn’t mean we should act like it,” I said to her, my eyes flicking to Panacea and her seat in the bleachers. “Just because we’re stronger than everyone else doesn’t mean we’re _greater_ than everyone else. It just means we were lucky.”

“But shouldn’t we use that luck for good? For noble things? Even snacks can have dreams, Koyomi! I should know, I tasted so _many _on my flight!”

Snacks.

Kiss-Shot, you still refer to them as snacks. And that’s why it won’t ever work.

“Can you tell me what Panacea’s favorite color is? What her favorite food is? What she likes to do in her free time?”

She looked at me, raising an imperious eyebrow.

“Can _you?”_

I can’t.

But I’d love to learn it. I’d love to learn about you, about Panacea, about Oshino. But with you like this… I’ll never be able to.

“I’m so, so sorry Kiss-Shot,” I said to her, looking at my hand. Five fingers spread out before me, and the scars that I’d remembered being there from when I was younger were entirely missing. I’d healed too completely to ever see them again. “But we’re not heroes. We’re just monsters.”

“We can be heroes!” She insisted, grabbing my hand, and looking at me with pleading eyes. “We can save everyone here! I promise!”

I took my hand from her grasp.

“Heroes are those that stand both above and beside others. To us, everyone is below us.”

I can never stand beside a human and tell them that I understand. I’ll never understand.

“Koyomi…”

“I’m sorry, Kiss-Shot,” I said to her, holding a hand out in the air. The blood on the ground, the iron that had poured out to make those who ran here stronger, rose at my call. Weapons fanned themselves out behind my body, and my mind blurred. “Try not to die, okay?”

Her eyes narrowed at me, and the ground _shattered _under our feet.

And then, the world was colored with **red**.

_hotbloodedironbloodedcoldblooded_


	13. PANACEA HALF

We clashed.

Her arm ripped off mine as a sword cut off hers. We weren’t people, in any way - our first clash was animalistic, blood-drenched, and insane. The place where her arm once was _twirled_, the blood beginning to shift as it fell, growing sharper and stronger as she rose it up, parrying the axe of red I’d sent cleaving at her neck out of the way. It fell uselessly to the ground, already dissolving back into the earth as I watched it. My arm returned to me, and we looked at each other for a moment.

“You’re wrong, Koyomi,” she insisted. “We can save everyone here without any trouble! Even if they’re just snacks, aren’t they _our _snacks?!”

“Humans aren’t just snacks, you know?” I said in response, as my arm _grew_, longer and larger, until it was barely an arm at all. I had a blunt, heaving thing covered in spikes instead of an arm, and I moved it to the left and right as I walked towards Kiss-Shot.

It was a blur as seventeen swords of blood emerged from the ground, and crashed against Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade. I could barely see I was moving so fast, the club already overhead and coming down-!!

But Kiss-Shot is a greater monster than I am.

Her body was in a hundred thousand shards, twisting and weaving in a million directions to dodge my every blow. She split in two to avoid my arm, carving it off as her dress was knives in my skin, her arm detaching entirely to grab my throat from her body. It was like a blur, as my swords split into daggers, and each tried to strike at her hand. Her lips smiled at me, and the teeth within them were like a void.

“That wasn’t very polite of you.”

She admonished me like a mother, as her fingers tightened around my neck, carving through the skin as blood fell down her hand. I smiled back at her.

“That wasn’t very smart of you.”

The blood became spikes. My mind became numb.

Kiss-Shot dropped me to the ground, and I _slipped _into it, my feet becoming the ground itself as I vanished from before her, moving further back as my swords clashed against her body, and she had yet to be hit by anything but those spikes I’d driven through her arm.

The swords fell, as she raised an empty hand and the blood that they were reabsorbed itself into her body; it had been so infected by her essence that it had ‘become a part of her’. Kiss-Shot’s terrifying, really. Even my weapons, my power itself, can be turned against me if it strikes against her too long. That was fine - the blood on the ground was just some of the blood.

Inside of the bleachers was more. I grasped at it, creating a swarm of ravens as it flew towards her, and she laughed delightedly, reaching a hand in the air.

“Wow, Koyomi! This might be an actual fight we’re going to have! Don’t worry, because it’s you--”

Her hand cleaved into her stomach, and a sword twice the size of her body emerged from it.

_“--This time I won’t go all out.”_

She swung it once, and reality shattered into sections.

Sound died.

The wind died.

The light died.

The ravens I’d sent towards her carved themselves into non-existence, breaking and shattering before my eyes like ten thousand tiny fireflies, before the fragments of estranged being coalesced into nothingness. I watched the world break apart ten thousand times in under a second.

The world reformed. I blinked, and Kiss-Shot smiled at me. I grasped at more blood, dredging it up from the school itself, and was almost sad at how much there was. It made me think she was right.

We could do a better job. We could do an amazing job. That girl who disappeared… we could find her, and make her happy. We could make the girl giving out the posters happy, the people in this school happy, and create a wonderful world.

But it wouldn’t be real. Just like the reality she’d carved away, it would be a fiction maintained by Kiss-Shot and Araragi Koyomi. Not something that exists in this grass I feel under my toes, this wind I feel upon my skin.

It’s a fake.

A copy of something real. Something genuine that can’t be erased. I can’t let Kiss-Shot destroy that for the whims of her own will. She’s too dangerous to allow that to happen.

The track-field grass murmured at me as I dredged up the blood of the trees that were once here, my mind empty of meaning. There was a sensation of sharp pain that pierced through my eye, and Kiss-Shot laughed like a demon as she drove her sword through my skull. Blood dripped down the front of it, and I sighed at her, laughing a bit.

“You’re not understanding, are you?”

I looked at her with a warm smile, and she peered at me with interest, her sword still jammed through my eye socket. It had split my eye in two, and it kept trying to reform around the blade, but it died with a shriek the instant it touched it. Kiss-Shot’s weapon was deadly. Deadly enough to kill an oddity, like me. It made sense after all. The King of Oddities shouldn’t suffer weaker ones.

“I’m not just a vampire.”

The blood dragged itself off of her sword, and another Kiss-Shot made of red appeared in front of me, piercing her stomach with a knife-like hand as she dragged the sword out of me with her free one. My eye began to reform, and my vision restored itself.

I can’t defeat Kiss-Shot with just regeneration with no will behind it. My mind shrieked as my clone _exploded_, bursting into a million specs as Kiss-Shot’s sword grazed it. Jeez, Kiss-Shot… Give me a little breather, why don’t you?

“Wow, Koyomi! That was pretty good! You must have been paying close attention to me!” She clapped her hands together, the sword barely avoiding her neck as she did. “Seriously, the bust was a little off though. Don’t you see?”

She pressed her arms to the side of her chest and leaned forward a bit, peering at me.

“I’m _way _bigger than that.”

It interested me way less than the previous Kiss-Shot. The one who had been my friend. The one whose head I had pat in obedience. The one who I had sworn to be their minion till the day I died.

“You’re not the person I thought you were,” I replied, twisting my leg as it carved the earth underneath my heel open, a blade a meter long emerging from my foot. “And I have to save you.”

“From what?”

“From yourself, I guess.”

Her arm was hanging on by a thread as she laughed, and she ripped it off with barely a thought. Waving it around in the air for a moment, she sighed, before tossing it to the ground.

The earth where it laid died, rotting before even a word was said. She smiled at me, and snapped her fingers, the ground cracking open and breaking in a dozen places as _hands_ reached upwards, grabbling at the surface, and I began to see faces. Their eyes were either empty sockets or so decomposed they were barely there. Half of them were corpses that she was making move, and the other half were so recently deceased they looked more lively then either of us.

I carved down half a hundred with an onslaught of spikes that rose from the ground, and Kiss-Shot’s lazy smile caught my attention as red filled my mind, covering every one of my senses in a burning heat, before my power struck at the corpses she had raised. Ten fell in a second, then twenty, then thirty, as I _reaved _their blood from their bones, decayed and decrepit as it was. They fell to the ground before they could even begin to exist.

“You can’t save me from myself, Koyomi,” Kiss-Shot said to me admonishingly, her arm already complete, a perfect attachment to the void where her limbs once were. “I’m not in any danger.”

She wasn’t.

Nothing I could do to her would hurt her. There was no possible way for me to defeat Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, who was my master. A disciple can never surpass the master, especially when he only has a few days of training.

But.

I wasn’t just a vampire. I was a parahuman too.

**White **was my mind as I reached for it, grasping at the blood of every single corpse she had raised, and I moved. My body was the wind itself, the ground shattering underneath my feet as I brought down my bladed foot through her skull, and she laughed happily as I carved it open. I smiled at her, and she smiled back when she grabbed my foot, and slammed me into the ground.

This was fun. I couldn’t even deny it anymore, even as the edges of my vision blurred when she threw me into the bleachers, my body smashing into it with a sickening crack when my bones splintered into nothingness against the metal.

“Araragi!”

Someone yelled my name, but I didn’t know who as I stood back up. I couldn’t let it go. There was too much at stake here. 

Kiss-Shot was a monster.

But that was fine, because she was inhuman. She was so inhuman as to be an aberration instead of an oddity, a king of vampires that settled for less. But--!!!

Those dreams she has-!!

Those hopes, those fears-!!

I can’t let her let go of them! No matter what, I have to show Kiss-Shot that there’s a world where everyone can be happy, even if it seems absurd!

I stood up, my body cracking a hundred thousand times as it repaired itself over and over again, and I raised a hand. The blood that I had under my control formed a massive golem, towering over the stadium itself as it _roared_, a shriek that pierced the sky itself before it turned towards Kiss-Shot, who stared it down with nothing but a sword in her hands.

This was insane. This was so far beyond humankind that it was shocking me every time I kept up. But I could - I could still move faster, I could still be stronger, I could still be greater-!!

The golem _smashed _its fist against her body, but I could feel her pushing back. Barely a finger, and she looked at my golem like she was _bored_. Like it didn’t mean anything at all, because it was barely even a danger to her. Jeez, Kiss-Shot… isn’t this kind of strength sort of absurd?

“Ahhh, Koyomi, you can’t just keep using the same tactics over and over! You have to change it up, you know?”

She smiled at me.

_“Like this.”_

Her hand reached up, and went directly through her skull. She moved it around a bit, biting her lip as she tried to do _something _that I didn’t understand, before grinning widely and pulling it out.

“Ahhh, that’s a lot better! Hey, Golem? Crush him for me, would you?”

My golem turned to me.

I _ran_, the bleachers barely withstanding the pressure of my feet as I pushed off of them, my power already grappling at the air to pull blood together to form a shield. The golem raised a single fist in the air, and I turned around to face it as it came down, iron overlaying itself a hundred thousand times in a second to forge a shield, the blood I’d called creating another layer on top of it.

It cracked.

Another layer. Another layer. I have to make another layer-!!

It cracked. It shattered. The golem’s fist crushed directly through my body, my guts spilling into the ground in a splatter as it did so, and I fell to my knees. I stared numbly at where my intestines trailed along the sand, sputtering up things that I didn’t understand.

I ripped the rest out and stood back up, my stomach already closing up and my intestines already regrowing. Kiss-Shot looked at me a bit sadly, before sighing and tapping her shoulder with the behemoth of a weapon at her side.

“Just accept your place at my side, already. I don’t mind a little disobedience, but isn’t this a bit much? You’ll die if you keep this up, you know.”

“Then we’ll both die.”

My mind was filled with static. I felt numb. Turning away from Kiss-Shot to the bleachers, I could see ******* and ****** in them, but they didn’t have any faces. The place where their face should be was a white empty space, where I couldn’t see anything but a void.

“Your soul can’t take it, Koyomi. You’re going to die.”

“If I can save you, then that’s okay right?”

I smiled at her.

She smiled back.

The ground _shattered _as we rushed each other again, a flock of hawks made from crimson pecking at her eyes before she carved them all asunder with her massive sword. The blade cut through my arm like it wasn’t even there, and I shifted the blood that it spilled into a tiger that roared in defiance as the steel slammed into its teeth. Her leg became a claw, one that grabbed at my foot and threw me away from her. I skipped across the track field like a stone.

The sky was empty of stars.

My mind was empty of thoughts.

Static ran through me like a wave. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t understand. I stared at the sky for a time, breathing as Kiss-Shot slaughtered all of my creations. I shakily stood, my body already repairing itself to full.

This wasn’t a fight between humans at all.

We rushed each other again, hands become knives and teeth becoming spears. Limbs flew, and her sword was caught by a hand that I’d carved off, or that she’d sliced off, and it whirled at me, stabbing me directly through the gut. Looking at each other, Kiss-Shot touched my face.

“You need to think about yourself.” She said to me.

“You need to think about others.” I said to her.

“Others? Humanity is a cattle that can’t be eradicated, Koyomi. No matter how often or how deeply you and I drink from it, there will always be more of them.”

“No, that’s not-”

“Come _on_, Koyomi. You know you don’t really care about humankind, right? You’re just doing it out of a ‘sense of obligation’. Out of everyone in this city, I’m the person you care for the most.”

No. It wasn’t true.

I cared for--

\--What was her name again? My mind shrieked at me as I created a spear of blood out of the rivets of red that ran down her sword, and they bored through her sides. She looked at me with a blood filled smile, and golden eyes.

“Are you sure about this? Do you really think that what I want is so terrible?”

“It’s not that you want it, so much as how you go about it.”

“Ka ka ka, you’re a terrible vampire, Koyomi.”

Yeah, Kiss-Shot. I am.

But I’d rather be a terrible vampire then a monster that eats humans.

“Fine then,” Kiss-Shot said, smiling at me sadly. “I guess it’s a real fight.”

It wasn’t already?! What’s with your crazy strength then!? Aren’t you going a little bit overboard for something that you aren’t taking seriously?!

She brushed her fingers across my face, and took a step back, the spear that I’d run her through with going with her. Her sword removed itself from my stomach with a disgusting sound, and she flicked the blood off the edges as her golden eyes grew colder.

“Shall we dance, then?”

Then she stabbed herself in the head with it.

Blood gushed from her like a fountain, until it slowly stopped and red lips curved upwards into a smile. The blood that she had left on the ground began to rise, shifting and twisting until it took a form - one was massive, a hulking beast with swords for arms and empty eyes. The other was slender and slim, with dancing dots where his eyes should have been and a scythe was resting on his shoulder.

They rushed me too fast for me to follow.

The swords the beast had for arms stabbed through me - one cleaving my right arm off and the other going directly through my forehead. The static that had covered my mind briefly lifted, as my power greedily drank in the data of what a vampire could do with blood. The scythe cut off both of my legs, and I was sent flopping on the ground, my body already regenerating.

The beast twitched as my power flooded over it, all of Kiss-Shot’s blood becoming under my domain. I turned it towards her, and she looked at it with amusement as it came at her, but my attention was already on the scythe-wielding thing she’d crafted. My power grasped for it--

\--and fell off it like a wave on the beach.

She had already found a way to immunize her own blood against my constructs. It didn’t even blink when my power roared at it, smashing against it with all the force it could muster, and I barely managed to turn my skin into wood as the scythe carved through it once again, trapping it in the center of me.

I smiled at it.

Then I _burst _her blood construct like a pimple. Blood covered my entire body, all of my clothes, and even my mouth. It was easy to burst her construct honestly - it was harder to control it then it was to destroy it.

Why were we fighting?

I couldn’t remember. I could barely think over the roar of static that infected my mind. Every second I lost more and more of myself as I went on.

But I couldn’t stop.

I couldn’t stop until I saved her.

“Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire--”

A sword of blood emerged from the earth and landed gently in my hand. It was a simple thing, pure red with a cross hilt and a blade. It wasn’t anywhere near as elegant as the oddity killer that Kiss-Shot held in her hand, already having dispatched the construct I’d thrown back at her. She stared at me with empty gold, and I looked back with empty red.

“I challenge you to a duel.”

Her lips twitched, and she twirled the sword in her hands.

“Isn’t this already a duel? It’s one on one, no holding back, nothing barred.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s just a fight. A duel is a clash of ideals.”

“That’s pretty weird, Koyomi,” she replied, tilting her head. Her sword rested against her shoulder as she looked at me, the blade dripping my blood to the ground. “Do you even have any ideals? Any dreams? Anything at all?”

I didn’t want to die.

I didn’t want to see her die.

Those were the only two thoughts that ran through my mind as I looked at Kiss-Shot, and she looked at me. She brushed out through our connection, and I ignored it, staring at her with empty eyes as **white **flooded through my mind.

I felt like a sieve.

Every second is a trial.

Every moment tears me in half.

But I can’t stop using my power. I have to use it if I want to stand atop that pinnacle of inhumanity that Kiss-Shot is - I can’t back down. The grass on my feet is colder than ice as I wrench the blood out of it, and the sky is blacker than hell.

She came at me like a _rocket_, that burst of speed so unexpected I barely had time to put my sword in front of hers before it broke into a thousand shards, the oddity killer destroying the ‘abomination’ that was my sword of blood.

I made another.

It shattered before her.

Another. Another. Another.

Twenty seven strikes, and I had made twenty seven swords. Every time I formed another one, my body shook like a leaf and my mind howled for an end. It was destroying me, inside and out, to create these weapons. Fighting Kiss-Shot was like a constant drain on my soul, and as her flurry of blows finally ended, my hand fell to my side with no sword in it.

“You’re destroying yourself, for nothing. When you die, I’ll make sure to leave ******* and ****** alive so that way they can remember what happens to those who oppose me.”

It wasn’t for nothing, Kiss-Shot. It’s all for you, you just don’t see it yet.

I tried to pierce her with a sword of red, and she casually tapped it with the oddity killer, breaking it into shards. I watched as it fell, my arm barely managing to turn into iron to block her blade as she swung at me.

Impossible.

Fighting Kiss-Shot on even ground is impossible. She’s so much stronger than me it’s insane. Her stats are so much higher than mine it’s like comparing a rare character to an SSR. I could barely stand against her, but I had to keep trying.

“Please, Kiss-Shot…”

It was a whisper from my lips, but with vampire hearing, she looked up at me.

“Think about it from a human’s perspective. Eating others… it’s wrong.”

“They’re weaker than us, so they should bow to us. That’s how the world works, right?”

She twirled her sword, and lazily waved a hand. From beneath her feet, a throne rose, that she elegantly sat down upon, crossing her legs as the blade of her sword stuck through the dirt.

“Because they’re weak, they’re worthless. Because they’re weak, they’re useless. Because they’re weak, they don’t have rights. That’s how this world is, isn’t it?”

I didn’t have a reply. There wasn’t anyway for me to reject what Kiss-Shot was saying, because it was true. It was so true that it made me want to fall to my knees and cry.

“Because I was weak, Alabaster nearly killed me. Because you were weak, he’s going to kill you. He just traded one vampire for another,” she said with a sad smile. “Isn’t that bittersweet, Koyomi?”

“No, it’s not. If you just promise-!!”

“To not hurt others? To make you human? To be something I’m not? You’re dizzyingly naive, Koyomi.”

The sword cracked the earth, as energy roared around it, red waves of power blooming from nowhere like flowers. She smiled dangerously as the energy grew, an aura of black beginning to crackle around her being.

“I am the strongest existence on the turnside of the world. Weiss killed oddities, but I _devour _them. The pinnacle of vampires, the pinnacle of oddities -- that’s me. So aberrant that even an oddity would avoid me, so twisted that humanity despises me, that is Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade.”

I don’t.

I don’t despise you at all, Kiss-Shot.

“You want to be a human again? Then come! Fight me! Defeat me! And your precious humanity will return to you!”

She stood up on her chair, the sword crackling red as she raised it over her head, laughing like a hyena.

“Or else stand aside, and watch as I _carve divinity itself asunder!”_

She cut reality into shards. It fragmented a dozen times before my eyes, the red lightning piercing through the air to cut at me. I couldn’t block it. There was no way I could stop such a blow.

Not as a ‘vampire’, at least. My body began to twist, turning inwards, as my legs became armored with wood and my chest _expanded_, growing and layering itself hundreds of times as wood became my body, as I grew larger and larger.

The energy that flew towards me was at least two fingers thick, a _piercing _red blaze that pierced through my wooden body, trying to find a center --

\-- But it couldn’t.

It went to my roots. I was too large to be so easily brought down by something as simplistic as the bolt of energy she had sent at me. I had become a tree.

I smiled smugly down at her, and she grinned delightedly at me.

“Koyomi! You’ve improved so much it’s _scary!_ How are you learning this fast? Even _I_ never learned how to do things at this kind of speed.”

I collapsed myself to a human form again, looking at her. My mind fractured a hundred times for every time I tried to change my body. I could barely think, let alone explain something to her.

Static.

That was all that was in my mind. It was a void of static, within which my thoughts were located. A few words, a breath, that was all I had.

But I had to stop her.

I had to stop Kiss-Shot-!!

“It’s simple,” I said, the words grinding out of my teeth like a hiss as I tried to place where I was, why we were fighting, and what was happening. “I just needed to be better than you.”

I moved.

Faster.

I had to be faster.

I had to be fast enough to get to her before she realized it-!!

My hand turned into a _vortex_, and I _pierced _through Kiss-Shot’s chest, the blood splattering over me before my power **screamed**, grabbing at it with all the fury of a fallen god, and created a hammer over the two of us.

She blinked.

I brought it down.

I crushed Kiss-Shot underneath the hammer of god, the blood easily parting to let me through. My mind froze.

She stood up again, her tights in tatters, her dress, in tatters, her face perfect. Kiss-Shot was an unstoppable monster, wasn’t she?

Static.

“******, you have to stop. You’re destroying your soul.”

I didn’t know who she was talking to. What’s she saying, right now? Kiss-Shot, are you speaking to me? You can use my name, right?

…

What was my name again?

“I can’t stop. Not until you stop.”

She frowned at me, tilting her head as she tapped her shoulder with a blade larger than her body.

“Stop what? Being a vampire? That’s impossible. I’ll be a vampire until the day I die.”

“Stop hurting others. That’s all I’m asking of you.”

Her laugh was like bells, hanging in the air with the delicacy of a fragmented dream.

“I can’t. You’ll have to kill me to stop me.”

I don’t want to kill you, Kiss-Shot.

I only want to save you. 

I can’t remember why. I can’t remember who I am. I can’t even remember why I’m here. It’s just…

There’s just one thing--!!

I can’t possibly let go of-!!

“I’ll save you.”

“From what?”

“From yourself. From others. From this world that you despise so much. I’ll save you.”

“Ka ka ka, ******, you can’t save me,” she said with a sad smile. “I’m already dead.”

She _burst _forward, her sword clashing into the iron that I’d turned my body into, the blade creating dozens of sparks as it scattered to the left of my armored form, my hand already turning into an axe as it moved off. I cleaved her arm in two, but it became a knife that stabbed into my thigh, the blood that flowed from it already singing with my power. The blood transformed itself, a spear of red stabbing into her leg, making her stagger.

It wasn’t enough.

There was no way anything I could do was enough to take down Kiss-Shot-!!

I moved in a blur, putting twenty meters between us. She smiled at me from a distance, before snapping her fingers, her sword breaking into an immeasurable amount of shards, each dangling around her person.

Every shard of that sword was a lethal blow. A blow that couldn’t be blocked by a human. It was a ‘killer of oddities’, and at this moment, I was an oddity. But…

At the same time…

I was more than that.

I had transcended being simply a vampire, even as my mind was covered in emptiness, and become something greater.

Her shards pointed towards me.

_They flew._

One. Ten. One hundred. One thousand. Every shard was deadly, and I flung out my arm as a flock of red crows rose from the ether, and _rushed_ her shards.

And as they did, we clashed.

Blood and steel flew around us in an impossible vortex as we met in the middle, her leg becoming a spear that she stabbed into me, my arm becoming a mace that I crushed into her side. My lips were drawn upwards, and I could see her face contort into what could be considered a smile.

It was a brutal dance of violence.

Every second was a trial. Every moment tore me in half. My mind screamed for release as shards of a sword that can kill even gods danced around us, the shrieks of my constructs as they blocked her attacks from striking me. This wasn’t a fight any mortal being could enter --

\-- This was a fight between 「monsters.」 The sheer lethality in our attacks was something that couldn’t be underestimated, or contained. My right arm became a shield as her left turned into a mace, bashing against it with hundreds of sparks, her teeth on full view as she laughed and laughed.

We were monsters.

And as such, we fought a fight of monsters.

Her arm flew off, and regrew.

My leg was shattered, and reformed.

We were in the center of a whirlwind that couldn’t be contained. The howl of my birds and the shriek of her steel rose higher and higher, until her foot smashed into the ground, and we **rose**.

A pillar of dirt took us upwards, until we hovered over even the metal and blood that clashed underneath us. I looked around, and I could see the blackness of the night more clearly then even my own body. It was quiet up here, barely a whisper other then the rush of the wind as we finally stopped climbing, higher and higher, and it was but the two of us, looking at each other.

“You’re a monster now, you know?”

I smiled at her, lips stained with blood.

“Yeah, but that’s fine. You’re one too.”

She smiled at me, her eyes dancing with delight. Then she curtsied, elegantly, even with the tatters of her dress barely covering her legs, her tights ripped a hundred times by her own transformations and my attacks. Her hair was splattered with red, and her face was half covered by blood. Golden eyes flecked with crimson looked into red eyes, and her smile grew even brighter.

“You’re the only equal I have in this world. Are you sure you want to destroy that?”

We’re not equal at all, Kiss-Shot. You’re holding back, even now. I can tell. I can tell when an attack should have killed me, when lethality was replaced with kindness. I clenched my fists, and slammed my foot into the ground. A spear of iron rose from the center of the circle, and I grabbed it, feeling the cold iron touch my skin.

“We’re not even close to equal. Don’t be ridiculous. You’re so far above me it’s insane. Even when we’re standing on this, you’re towering over me like destiny itself.”

“It was fated that we met. It was fated that we fight. Who do you think is fated to win?”

“Obviously--”

I pierced her heart with my spear, ramming her through so deep that our faces were touching.

“--Humans kill monsters. That’s just the way the world works.”

She kissed me.

Gently, fondly, but she kissed my lips with her own, both of us so drenched in blood that it was impossible to tell what was hers and what was mine.

Then, she cut me in half. My body dangled in the air for a moment, before beginning to fall. But I was better than that, now. Even if I didn’t understand what was happening, where I was, or who I was --

\-- In this fight, Kiss-Shot had taught me more than anyone in the world.

My body reformed. My legs grew back. My torso lengthened. I was whole in under a second, and she grinned as she watched me regenerate my entire being so fast it was like the blink of an eye.

“Well done, ******,” she said, and there was a shriek in my mind as static rushed through it a thousand times. Shards of steel and crows of blood rose higher and higher, and I could hear them now, floating around us in hundreds of parts as we looked at each other. “You’re not so terrible a vampire after all."

I guess I’m not. But I don’t feel that way at all.

“But you’re becoming a terrible human as we speak. What kind of insanity is broiling in your mind, that you can continue going? How are you moving when you barely even have a personality left?”

Static ran through like a white page. I could barely think at all. My body moved on its own.

“It’s kind of sad, isn’t it? You’re going to win, but you’re going to lose everything you are to do so. So go. Kill me. _Break me apart._”

I cleaved her in two, dragging my spear out of her body and spinning it around, the back half become a blade to cut her in half. She grinned widely as her body flew off, falling down a thousand feet through a rain of steel and red, and I _jumped _after her, running down the side of this enormous construct as we fought our way down.

Ten shards of steel came at me, and I crafted a chain around my arm, throwing my spear to force them away.

Twenty crows flew away from the cacophony to peck at her eyes, and she gently tapped one on the beak, before all of them faded away.

Her legs regrew, her body twisting in mid air to kick off a shard of her sword I could barely even see, before she was upon me again. We clashed as we raced down the side of her pillar, already forcing it lower and lower with the more we took from it. More iron, more steel, more _power _that the two of us could take, twisting and shifting it into forms so far beyond human comprehension that it was insane.

Hookwolf, compared to us, was like a kindergartner compared to a college graduate.

My fingers turned into darts, and I fired them at her eyes in a blur of regeneration and movement, the blood that streaked from them connecting back to my hand as she battered them away, drawing them back so swiftly they reattached without a worry.

She struck at me with a blade I hadn’t seen before, the shards reforming into a smaller weapon that was almost unavoidable, and my spear was too slow -- it fell to the ground as her knife pierced my gut, drawing it out quickly to let more of my blood fall.

Ahhh, Kiss-Shot…

You really aren’t understanding my power, are you? It’s like it’s something so confusing you can’t even begin to comprehend it. It’s like…

...Oh.

I’m kind of getting it now.

Parahumans and the supernatural really don’t mix at _all_, do they?

My body twisted, as the blood rushing from my gut became a rope that wrapped around Kiss-Shot. Her eyes widened, and I smiled at her widely.

Then, I jumped off.

_And pulled us both to the ground._

We fell for a hundred feet. Her body drew close to me, and we grappled in the air, twisting over and under as we clawed at each other, fingers becoming knives that were stabbed into arms, legs kicking at each other before twisting into clubs that battered at each other. It was an embrace so tight that it was impossible for me to tell who was on top of who, and who was underneath.

We slammed into the ground with the force of a meteor. The earth cracked as we hit it, then a _crater _appeared underneath us, and we hovered for a moment before falling even further. I had my hands around Kiss-Shot’s neck, and my mind was nothing but static.

Where were we?

Why were we fighting?

Who am I?

“******--” she said, with a beautiful smile, gently touching the side of my face, “Please kill me.”

I was happy to oblige.

I raised my hand up, and it became a sword. The sword was simple, not even elegant, barely anything but a weapon suited for killing.

It grew.

It grew again.

A sword fifty feet high was held in my hand, and I was ready to bring it down on top of her--!!!

\--Then someone grabbed my arm. I turned. There was a man in an aloha shirt grabbing onto me, but his face was covered in **white**. _**I couldn’t see his face.**_

“Don’t, *******-san. She’s using you.”

I didn’t understand. Kiss-Shot glared at him, her eyes burning a hole in his body as she hissed.

“Stay out of this, you-!!”

“Nah, I won’t anymore. This is too brutal for even the likes of me,” he said sadly, looking at me. The place where his face was - it was a void. Empty of any features that I could recognize. “She wants to die, you know? That’s the only reason you found her. Two suicidal dead things meeting in a dead city, under a dead sky -- that was the fate you found. It took me too long to figure it out.”

The place where his eyes would have been pierced my being like an arrow through my heart.

“Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade wants to die. She’s letting you kill her because then you can return to being human.”

The sword that was my arm turned back into an arm. I looked at Kiss-Shot, and she looked away from me. Static covered my mind.

“I just…”

“You want a happy ending? No such thing exists, *******-san. But…”

He smiled sadly at me, putting his arm on my shoulder.

“There is an ending where everyone can be perfectly unhappy.”

He looked at me, and I looked at him. The two paths before me diverged into an endless array of possibilities, but…

I couldn’t deny it any longer.

My mind was a mess of phrases I didn’t understand. Even the words he spoke to me ran through it like water down a drain. I nodded.

“Then we’ll have an unhappy ending, won’t we?”

Something pierced through my back, and pierced Kiss-shot’s stomach. Looking dumbly at it, it seemed like a spear, covered in hundreds of letters so miniscule they were indecipherable. We were connected through it, and the letters began to _glow_.

“Ten years, and you blow through all that power in a second. Seriously, *******-san, you should be grateful.”

Static.

My mind was static.

I couldn’t see. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. There was a wave of emptiness inside of me as the glow grew brighter and brighter, and Kiss-Shot smiled so softly and sadly at me that my heart broke a thousand times.

She held her head up to my ear, and whispered in it. My heart froze.

“See you around, Araragi Koyomi.”

Static.

Her body vanished. The spear vanished. Static. I couldn’t see anything. Static. I couldn’t move. Static.

My mind _exploded_. I screamed.

“Araragi-san? **ARARAGI-SAN!**”

Static.

My body was on fire. Blood gushed out of my eyes. Static. I couldn’t understand anything. Static.

I was breaking apart into a million pieces, every part of me was dying. I was dying. Static. There was a crashing wave of force entering my soul, a hundred thousand pieces of a hundred thousand fragments all forcing their way into the corners of my existence, and all I could see was ---

Static.

Someone grabbed my arm, and I could see a blur of a face with brown hair crying over my body. She was mouthing words I couldn’t understand, and I smiled with lips filled with blood at her.

Static.

“He’s going to die! Do _something_, won’t you!?”

“I can’t! I can’t do anything, his… oh my god, his pollentia’s growing?! It’s taking over his nervous system! It’s too large, I can’t--”

“Then **_FIX IT! _**Aren’t you supposed to be the ultimate healer!?”

Static.

My body was moving. I could feel myself being moved. Static. My brain was dying. I couldn’t understand what was going on. There was a blur of faces and names that I didn’t know crossing my vision.

“You’ve said you ‘don’t do brains’. Someone who doesn’t do brains can’t see them. Break it apart.”

“I can’t!”

“Hey Panacea? Do it, or I’ll kill you.”

I reached out to try to stop the man with no face, to comfort the girl so desperately holding onto my arm but--

Static.

My mind was like a sieve. Hundreds of thoughts raced through it, and all of them slipped my grasp. I couldn’t hold onto anything but the desperate hope it would end soon. My existence was being erased by the sheer power that I’d been tied to.

Static.

“He’s going to _die_, because of you! You can alter his power so his soul can take the feedback, or _he’ll die!”_

“Oh god, there’s so much blood, I can’t-!!”

“**DO IT!**”

Static.

Emptiness filled my entire being. I was at peace. Even through the pain, I was so peaceful it was absurd. I smiled at the girl holding onto me, lifting a hand to her face to brush away the tears that streaked downwards.

She looked at me, and her eyes suddenly filled with determination as she held onto my hand like a vice.

Static.

“More. He needs more. He needs either more power, or more of _something!_ Dammit! Where the _**hell **_is that con artist when you need him!?”

“It’s his brain! It’s overloading everytime I try to split his pollentia away! There’s… It’s so _vast! _How’s he even still alive?!?”

“Split it. Carve it off and put it in her.”

“I _can’t-”_

“You can’t do brains, you can’t split a soul, **so why are you even here then!?**”

Static.

I felt part of me slip away, to a place I couldn’t reach. I felt part of who I was vanish from me, my soul gaining a shadow so large and vast it dwarfed even my own. A flash of blonde hair slipped through it, dancing through the gaps in my existence to enter something--

“It’s too much to one side. They have to be even, Panacea! Fifty percent in **each!** You throw anymore into one side and they’ll both die!”

“He’s still dying! What the **fuck **do you want me to do!?”

_“I want you to heal him.”_

Static.

I broke a thousand times in a second. Every part of me was shattering, my power screeching in my mind for more, more data, more info, more ability, more strength, while the vampire in my soul hissed in response, pushing it back. No, don’t take that, no, we can’t manage that, no, it’s too much. It was a constant push and pull between two things completely at odds, and they glared at each other inside of my soul.

[QUERY.]

I couldn’t move.

Anger.

I couldn’t breathe.

[CONFIRMATION?]

I couldn’t even think without pain coursing through my body.

Annoyance.

Everything was fire. Every part of my body was so filled with a vicious sensation of pain that even the thought of moving was too much.

[...SUGGESTION?]

And then, suddenly---

** _Agreement._**

**Everything fell into place.**

I opened my eyes with a _gasp_, feeling like something was missing inside of me but unable to place what. Above me was a girl with brown hair and green eyes, crying so fiercely that her tears fell against my chest with such frequency it was like rain.

I reached a hand up, and brushed them away. She looked at me with a shaky breath, her eyes still shimmering.

“A-Araragi? Is… Is that you?”

“Hey Amy,” I said with a smile. “You should cry a little less.”

**COGNITION END.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Woah, what the hell is this!? This isn’t the interlude I was expecting! Take back the time I spent reading your story!”
> 
> Sorry, I can’t do that, but this isn’t really for you. It’s more for me. Hot-Blooded is now, officially, the longest thing I’ve ever written. And I did it in a month (longer for you guys, but that’s because I’m trapped in an endless cycle of beta reading and content review). 57,903 words.
> 
> That’s really long. That’s insane to write in a month, especially for someone as flaky as me. I’m sure you’ve got a metric ton of questions after Panacea Half, but don’t worry - most of those can now easily be answered in FAQ2, because now that Cognition is over, you probably have the gist of how this world works, and your questions aren’t going to spoil you on stuff that I wanted to keep hidden!
> 
> First of all, thank you so much for reading Hot-Blooded. Seriously, this outpouring of support is absolutely astounding for me. My last popular story was Neurocracy, and that was because it was one of like, six Worm stories at the time. Hot-Blooded is nothing like that, and it stuns me every time someone sends me a message like “I can’t believe you’re style matching Nisio”, or “This story’s amazing! I love what you’ve done with the world!” Every single one of your messages warms my heart and makes it beat a little bit faster. If you guys keep this up, I might fall in love, you know? It’s not that I’ve never been a popular author before, it’s that Hot-Blooded was so different and out there that I never expected anyone to read it at all. I’m so incredibly grateful that everyone reads this random garbage, so thank you for that.
> 
> “Why are you even writing an afterword?! This isn’t published or anything, so no one’s going to read this!”
> 
> Yeah, that’s probably true. It’s true that a lot of the people here will have their eyes glaze over, and maybe go look at FAQ2 instead when it comes up, or wait for the interlude when I finish writing that. But it’s important for me to write it, I think. It helps me collect my thoughts, and that’s important after finishing arc 1.
> 
> What a rush those fights were, huh? I’ve never written anything that high octane in my life, so if I even pulled it off a little bit, I’m happy. Koyomi Vampire and Panacea Half were my favorite two chapters to write, and it was an absolute blast to set them up as well. But I’m sure you’d rather hear about the future of Hot-Blooded, instead of my rambling over nothing, right?
> 
> Hot-Blooded isn’t done. Cognition, the first arc, is. I have three arcs in total pre-plotted (but they’ll probably go totally out of control like Cognition did. It was only supposed to be ten chapters!) and I’m not planning on dropping it any time soon. I’m sure most of you might be confused, because Wildbow and most fanfiction authors end their arc with “Interlude 1”, but Interlude 1 is the opening of arc 2 for me. I don’t want to use it as a transitional phase after the climax of Cognition, because that just seems a bit ridiculous, right? Cognition ended on such a massive high, that writing an interlude after Panacea Half would make it feel… cheap, I guess, for me.
> 
> Anyways, this is getting rambly, so let me talk about Hot-Blooded itself instead of random thoughts. I’m sure everyone, even the people who actually read all 57,903 words of this story, wondered at some point. “Why Bakemonogatari? Why Araragi Koyomi? What do they even add to Worm?”
> 
> To be blunt? It was on a whim.
> 
> I was thinking over what kind of Worm thing to write (because I crave validation and Worm is ultra popular here), and badgering Logic to write more of F1END didn’t work. I thought about anime, and then the line came to my mind.
> 
> ‘I saw a superheroine’s panties for six and a half seconds.’
> 
> And so, Araragi Koyomi became the protagonist of Hot-Blooded, a story where two depressed loners become friends, and two suicidal people kill themselves. Yeah, I’m pretty uplifting, right?
> 
> It’s still insane to me that so many people read this. But nobody’s really cares about afterwards, so I’ll end it here:
> 
> Thank you so much for reading Cognition! Please look forward to arc 2: Intention, coming soon!
> 
> fran.


	14. DEAN CONFUSION

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FAQ 2
> 
> Uwaaa... Everyone's forgotten about me... I don't even matter anymore.. Even my totally voluptuous body goes unnoticed...
> 
> 1\. Hey! Get up already! I've got some serious questions for you, like about why a middle school girl thinks that her body's anything like volup-
> 
> Shut up! Even middle school girls have dreams! Someday, I'll grow up and have some serious bounties, okay!? Something totally amazing that'll make everyone regret making fun of me in middle school! What do you know anyways?! You're just an invisible existence that's representing the reader's intent on these questions for fourth wall gag purposes! 87% chance people find these annoying!
> 
> 1.Since Devil Arm and Neko has show up will Mayoi Hachikuji(Lost Snail) show up?
> 
> Woah, that's a really normal question, that the author would totally answer if he wasn't a super hack who didn't even think of his more favorite characters when he sat down to start writing! 63% chance he forgot about her entirely! 92% chance that he didn't even remember how cool she was before watching Bakemonogatari again! 74% chance she won't even appear in the next arc because it focuses on unrelated characters to her!
> 
> ...And a 100% chance she will, at some point, make her inevitable appearance.
> 
> 2\. Is Araragi's mom childhood friend is Lung?
> 
> That's a question that will come up very quickly. So don't worry, there's a 100% chance you'll get to learn all about Araragi's mom's super hunky childhood best friend very soon!
> 
> 3\. ...Souls are pretty durable, huh?
> 
> It's not that 'Araragi's soul is durable', so much as it is 'Kiss-Shot and Araragi's shard are insane'. There was only a .00000001% chance that it would succeed, and most of that was up to fate, rather then anyone involved. It's because of how 12th Dimensional physics interact with Oddities, and vice versa. I'm not really well versed in shard mechanics though, so I can't really explain anything more...
> 
> 4\. How much does the government/Protectorate know about the Supernatural? Seems like something they would know about (with all those Thinkers... and thinkers). I wonder what is hidden beneath all the paperwork and PR.
> 
> 100% chance that the Protectorate knows nothing about Oddities. 100% chance that the Protectorate cannot even perceive oddities. Every oddity exists in a "blind spot", that "parahuman powers can't perceive". It requires a super broken person to make both a parahuman power and an oddity work in harmony, so usually these powers are only used by the insane or truly inhuman. Parahuman abilities and the supernatural really don't mix - the supernatural can't perceive parahuman ability, and vice versa. That's why Alabaster Weiss had a 100% success rate at contracting oddities - his 'existence' was such an impossibility that every oddity could not possibly comprehend that his 'body reset to default'. Similarly, parahuman ability can't perceive an oddity. If a thinker tried to perceive an oddity, the power would basically enter false positives over and over, filling in the blanks. It would trick the parahuman into thinking that everything was working properly, but it has no way to perceive the turnside of the world in reality. 
> 
> 5\. Hey! Wait a minute you bratty middle-school girl! Aren't you a Thinker!? How are you giving these scarily accurate numbers?!
> 
> I'm not really in the story, idiot! That's what you are, an I-D-I-O-T. I'm an authorial construct created to give information that wouldn't naturally come up in the story to the audience because they're being super vain about their dumb background information! Nobody cares about shard mechanics and how they interact with oddities, iiiidiiioooot. Nobody wants to know about how parahuman abilities and oddities normally interact stuuuupid.
> 
> 6\. Oy, oy! Don't get all uppity, you two-faced brat! Learn to listen to your betters! Why the hell is Araragi still alive, anyways!?
> 
> ...
> 
> It's his soul.
> 
> 100% chance that before she died, Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade communicated with Araragi Koyomi's shard. 100% chance that they came to a mutual understanding, and found a way to make an ending where nobody could be happy, but everyone could be perfectly unhappy. An ending where both Kiss-Shot and Araragi Koyomi can live half-filled existences, instead of an ending where only one of them lives a whole existence. Jeez, those two and that shard of theirs...
> 
> They're pretty scary sometimes.
> 
> 6\. Where's Intention!?! What's the first chapter about?
> 
> Intention appears right below this ridiculous over the top FAQ! 100% chance the first chapter of it is entitled Dean Confusion!

**\---**

The meeting Dean was called into was grim. He knew why, intellectually, such an event would be so grim, but the faces surrounding him were so deathly serious it was like he’d walked into a wake. He nudged Dennis, who was napping under his visor, and the boy jolted awake, flailing a bit before settling for glaring at Dean.

“Fuck _off_, Dean. That was totally unnecessary, you know?”

He smiled fondly at his fellow Ward, before turning to face the front, where Director Piggot and Armsmaster stood, looking seriously at the gathered crowd.

“This is an all-hands meeting,” the Director said, her eyes like two chips of ice as she spoke. “New Wave. The Protectorate. The PRT. The Wards. This is the most serious crisis we’ve ever had on our hands.”

Dean shivered, but he knew she was right. That **wave** of power… That massive structure… What kind of cape could’ve made such things?

“The first thing to go over is the capes that have interacted with this new cape. Glory Girl has stated he goes by ‘Alucard’, and he’s either an _extremely _fresh trigger, or an old one pretending. His tentative ratings are listed on the whiteboard, so don’t ask what his powers are, because _we still can’t figure it out_.”

Dean’s eyes looked to the white board, and they bulged. Changer 7, Brute 7, Shaker 7… What the hell? What kind of cape was this?

“In the last week, he’s been in three combat encounters. Othala and Victor, Hookwolf, and Alabaster. The _landscape_ of the wharf was changed by whatever he did to Alabaster. The man’s vanished completely off the face of the earth entirely - nobody can find him, nobody has seen him--”

She breathed deeply, and her eyes steeled.

“We have to assume he’s dead, and that Alucard killed him.”

Dead?

One of the Empire 88 capes was _dead? _Killed by some fresh trigger?

“The description that everyone has given of Alucard stays the same: average height, slim build, a domino mask, and a peace sign around his neck. He has black hair that sticks up, and is fairly pale. He is also one of the most dangerous capes in the city - possibly on the level of Lung or Kaiser.”

Dean was growing pale at the descriptions of this cape. He seemed like a total impossibility, how could the balance of the city shift so much just because of one person?

“This is unimportant to us, however. What _is _important is what Glory Girl wrote in her statement about him - Alucard seems entirely uneasy about his brutal fight, expressed worry over others, and claims to have done all of this for a _friend_,” the Director frowned at that looking at the gathered group. “I cannot stress enough that this is how far he was willing to go for one person.”

Dean’s power detected a quiet taste of guilt and shame from someone in the area, and he looked around to figure out who. His eyes widened as he saw a girl with brown hair and green eyes, squirming next to a blonde girl with blue eyes that looked at him before nudging the brunette next to her and whispering while pointing at him.

Their relationship was off again, wasn’t it? He’d forgotten that for a moment.

“Do not approach Alucard. Do not sell him on the Wards. Do not invite him out on patrols. If he doesn’t appear for the next several **months**, that still isn’t enough time to figure out how badly this has imbalanced the power in the city.”

The Director looked around for a moment, before glancing at Armsmaster, giving him a curt nod. The man stepped forward, pointing to the whiteboard.

“Brute 7. Changer 7. Shaker 7. Alucard is the kind of cape that only comes around once every _decade_. We do not want him to be on our bad side, but… He’s too brutal.”

A click of a button, and Dean watched with interest as a holographic screen projected itself over the white board, with a series of photographs. One was a close up shot of Alucard, who really was just an ordinary sort of guy. Almost unassuming, really - it was at odds with the rest of the photographs.

Alucard, with a shield attached to his arm, and Tsubasa jumping off his shoulder to hit Hookwolf.

Alucard, standing in front of Othala and Victor, a smile on his face as he gave them a thumbs up. Victor was grinning broadly, and Othala was shaking her head.

A blurred photo, that made Dean’s head hurt. Two people on top of a pillar that towered over everything, barely two nights ago now. A whirlwind of crimson and steel surrounded it, and you could barely make out the figures as one held a spear towards the other, pointing it with all the authority of God himself at his enemy.

Alucard.

It was Alucard, _again_. The same person in under a week, three times… A shiver ran down Dean’s spine at the kind of dedication the new cape had to justice. What could he be planning next?

A pang of guilt echoed through the air with the force of a physical blow. Dean didn’t even need to look to know who it came from - there was only one person in this room who ever felt like that. His eyes drifted again over to Victoria, passing over her to eye the smaller brunette next to her. He focused.

Guilt. Self-loathing. Shame. Disgust. Fear. Amy’s emotions ran a _gauntlet _in the span of seconds, a dozen different feelings all bursting from her heart the more he focused on her. Looking at her eyes, he followed her eyeline.

She was looking at the last picture. That blurry photo surrounded by steel and red. Something that fit more into an _action movie_ then the reality of the scenario; a fight between two capes.

Dean’s eyes narrowed. Panacea knew something, but she wouldn’t say anything. She squirmed in her seat again, until Victoria nudged her in the shoulder, and she froze up like a deer caught in headlights. The blonde girl leaned down to whisper in her ear, and Dean could feel her relax, rolling her eyes as she nudged her back.

The rest of the meeting passed slowly. The discussion of Alucard was tabled for the moment, and the rest was about dealing with the gangs and everything else that could occur in the next few months. He answered politely when questioned, stayed silent when he needed to, and was, in general, a perfect Ward.

When the meeting let out, he stood around amicably chatting for several minutes, before excusing himself as he saw Amy slip out.

“Amy! Wait up!”

The girl turned around as she exited the door, her hands stuck deep into the pockets of her doctor’s coat that she’d started wearing almost randomly. Beneath it, a black collared shirt and a black skirt, with socks that ended just an inch underneath the hem. Completing her ensemble was a pair of simple black flats, and she crossed her legs before tilting her head in impatience, raising an eyebrow.

“What is it, Dean? I’ve got work to do, you know.”

“Just… I felt your emotions inside, and-”

“Oh _damn_. Look, it’s none of your concern, okay?” She scratched the back of her head, looking away from Dean’s face for a moment. “I just got caught up in his pace, that’s all. He’s nowhere near as bad as everyone makes him out to be, so don’t worry about it.”

“He’s a _killer _Amy! You can’t just-”

“What if he was in a situation he couldn’t get out of?! What if someone had showed up and ruined _everything _by thinking they could do something when they’re just--”

She cut herself off, looking away after clicking her tongue. She crossed her arms, holding them just below her chest, and bit her lip before looking at Dean.

“Look Dean. I know you _love _investigating things, and being a detective. But you seriously don’t need to look into the new cape, alright? He’s not… around anymore, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

Her phone rang, and she groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose as she looked at the caller, answering it with an almost lazy ease.

“Hello? Araragi? No, I’m still at the Rig. Look, I don’t care if you found a ‘seriously amazing donut shop’ on the Docks. No, it doesn’t _matter _if ‘they’ve got every flavor in existence, even ones that I don’t think should exist’. Are you being serious right now? Are you actually calling me to have this argument over donuts? Is this what you’ve chosen to do?”

She nodded, her mouth set in a line, but Dean’s power could sense her emotions. Was this… Was this how she acted when she was _happy?_

“Fine. If you insist, I’ll take a plain donut. After your last ‘experimental treats’, I don’t want to experience them again,” she waved at Dean as she walked away, not even looking at him as she bounced four topics in ten seconds. “What do you _mean_, ‘you think your sisters like me’? Isn’t that a good thing? They told me you didn’t even have friends before you met me, so that’s a massive improvement, right?”

Her voice faded out into the distance, but Dean was frowning. That phone call… He didn’t even know Panacea _had _friends. But...

Who on Earth was Araragi?

Dean asked everyone he knew.

"Araragi? Ohhhh, you mean Araragi Koyomi? He's like, one of the only people my sister texts. She told me he was a 'super-plain guy', the kind who 'would realistically never amount to anything'. Like, totally ordinary in every way," Victoria said over lunch, munching on a fry. "He goes to our school, I think? I've never seen him before, though."

"Oh, Araragi Koyomi? Yeah, he's in my math class," Dennis answered him once, when they were both working on the console. "He's super weird, Dean. Like, he's got this aura of 'if you speak to me, something terrible will happen', and it's seriously creepy. I genuinely recommend not getting involved with him."

"Oh, is he shady?" Dean had replied, glancing over the notes he'd taken of an earlier meeting. "Like, 'might have gone to Winslow,' or 'involved with a gang' or something?"

"No, that's the scary part, right? He's just a totally ordinary guy but every time anyone might to talk to him, it feels like something awful's going to happen in a day or so. Not anything seriously dangerous, no drugs or anything, just something horrible. Just avoid him, alright?"

He talked to Vista once about it during a patrol.

“Araragi? I think one of the sisters tutors a girl I know. Seriously, this is a weird question. Why would I know anything about ‘Araragi Koyomi’?”

He even tried asking Sophia when they were walking into the Rig one day. She just raised her eyebrow at him, punched him in the face, and told him to go kill himself.

It was a step up from his last interaction with her, so he counted it as a positive.

Dean didn’t think about Araragi Koyomi for a few months, until one day, he _saw _him.

It was outside a building that nobody ever went into, and there was a boy, about average height, with hair covering one of his eyes and a bit of it sticking up on the end. He was talking animatedly with a brunette girl wearing glasses, who crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at something she said.

“Seriously Taylor, I don’t think you understand. The supernatural isn’t something that can just casually be found, we have to put some thought into-”

“Excuse me? Are you Araragi Koyomi?” Dean tapped the shoulder of the boy, who jumped ten feet in the air, turned around and held his hands up like he was a master of karate.

“E-eh?! Of course I am! Kufufu, so you’ve found me at last,” he smirked, tilting his head back as he brushed his hair out of his face. “Fear not! I, Araragi Koyomi, am a person who is prepared for any and all events - even ones that I didn’t know about!”

The girl next to him crossed her arms, frowning.

“When I asked you to help me find someone, you said that it sounded like a lot of work and claimed you were too busy ‘finding the best food in every district’ to help me.”

“Th-that was before I understood what you were talking about! Don’t go around spreading dangerous rumors about me, it could seriously affect my reputation!”

“Panacea told me that you’re the kind of person who’ll run away from any kind of difficult situation, unless girls are involved. She seemed kind of annoyed about it.”

“She’s lying! I’ve never done anything untoward to another person in my life! Don’t believe everything you hear, okay?!”

The girl turned to Dean with long suffering eyes, shrugging her shoulders. Dean empathized deeply with her, as he had put up with Dennis for years.

“S-so what exactly do you want anyway?” Araragi asked him, and Dean just smiled politely, and extended a hand.

“Just wanted to meet you, that’s all. I’ve heard some things about you that had to be seen to be believed.”

Araragi shook his hand with gusto, stammered some excuses, then grabbed the other girl by the arm and ran away so fast Dean almost wanted to _swear _he was a Mover.

But he was focused on something else.

The entire time he had been around the two--

**Neither of them had any emotions that he could detect.**

**\---**


	15. Intention 2.1

Time passes pretty quickly when you think about it. A few years ago, when I was in middle school, I had clutched to my mom’s childhood friend’s hand as he’d dropped me off at karate practice. And now, I was standing at his door once more, but entirely unwilling to knock on it.

Oshino-san, did you not know Lung lived here? Are you sure you gave me the right address? This seems entirely unlikely. I know that it’s been a few months since I gave up my powers and everything, but why did you say that _now _was a good time to explain to him that we’ve set up shop as oddity experts in Brockton Bay?! Aren’t we a few months late to the party!? We’ve been finding and removing oddities for weeks! Don’t you think he’ll be a little mad!?

I knocked on the door in spite of my totally reasonable fear of Lung, and waited patiently at the door. It slowly opened, revealing a tall, asian man with broad shoulders and a scar over his left eye. His eyes widened when he saw me, and he smiled broadly.

“Ah, Koyomi-kun, it’s good to see you again. How have you been?” 

I looked at my mom’s childhood friend, and my shoulders sagged.

“I'm here to see Lung, Kenta-san.”

“...Eh? Are you sure Lung lives _here_, Koyomi-kun? Are you sure you aren’t just here to catch up and chat about your life? I’ve heard you have a _girlfriend _now, Koyomi-kun. That’s some massive improvement in your interactions with girls from middle school, isn’t it?”

“She’s just a friend! Also, what do you mean ‘massive improvement’!? I had friends in middle school too!”

“Didn’t one of them punch you in the face and vanish completely from school for the next two years?”

“That was a misunderstanding! I’m sure she’s gotten over it by now!”

“I see. Very well, Koyomi-kun, please come inside.”

I followed Kenta-san inside of his house. It was more Japanese than ours, but that made sense - Mom always said that Kenta was ‘super in touch with his Japanese roots’ and it showed from his decor.

It was a classical japanese style - the door at the front was more of an ‘entryway’ then an actual ‘door’. We walked quietly through his courtyard, and I couldn’t help glancing at the bamboo trees he had scattered around the area. In the middle of the courtyard was a gazebo-esque structure, made of wood with a kotatsu underneath the awning, and he beckoned me to sit down with him. We sat, and a girl appeared to place tea on the table before vanishing into the mist.

“....Kenta-san, who was that?”

“Please don’t pay any attention to the help, Koyomi-kun. They’d be ashamed if they knew you saw them.”

“No, hey, wait, Kenta-san. Aren’t you just a totally ordinary businessman that my mom knows? Are you actually the hidden emperor of Japan?”

He chuckled, taking a drink of his tea, before placing the cup down with a small smile on his face.

Then, the smile died.

“She knew it would happen.”

“What?”

“Your mother. She always said that you were… different, from your sisters.”

I didn’t understand, and took a sip of my tea, taking in the surrounding area. The trees, the cool wind, the ninja on the rooftop who looked suspiciously like Oni Lee…

Wait.

The ninja on the rooftop doesn’t just look like Oni Lee. It is Oni Lee. Looking back down at my tea, I looked slowly up at Kenta, and for the first time, _really _looked at him.

The muscles.

The fact that he’d never gone to the beach with us, even when my mom badgered him to.

The scars.

And his eyes -- like two chips of iron carved out of one of the swords I’d been able to create. My smile died slowly, and Kenta nodded in approval.

“Good. I see you’ve figured it out. I’m impressed, your mother was only a few seconds faster than you were.”

“You… you’re…”

“Yes,” he said, standing up and unbuttoning his shirt. It fell to the ground, and he turned around, showing a massive dragon on his back.

“I am Lung.”

My mother’s childhood friend was Lung.

“I am the leader of the Asian Bad Boyz. I am one of the strongest parahumans in Brockton Bay,” he said to me, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he faced me once more, “And I am in your and Oshino-san’s debt.”

“Eh?”

He sighed, sitting back down, and gesturing with a hand. Oni Lee appeared in front of us for a second, refilling the tea kettle before vanishing once more. Wasn’t he supposed to be some sort of scary demon?! Isn’t it totally unnatural for him to act like this!? Kenta-san, please pick better subordinates!

“Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade was a monster among monsters. If she had gone through with her plan to change the city…”

He took a sip of tea, closing his eyes and breathing in.

“The city would not have survived it. There is too much corruption, too much cruelty in this place for it to be so easily changed by a single oddity.”

“Aren’t you a cause of a lot of that, though?”

“I am Lung. My word is law. My demands are ironclad. But I am a criminal.”

Okaa-san, aren’t you a police officer? Shouldn’t you arrest him?

He smiled as he looked at me, chuckling quietly.

“Yes, your mother had the same reaction upon discovery. However, she realized what you are about to as well.”

Realized what?! In what world is anything Lung does acceptable!? He’s a killer, a monster, a demon in human form. He steals children from their beds and collects--

Oh.

“Yes,” Lung said, nodding with approval. “The ‘identity of Lung’ is a mystery to everyone in the city. Who I am, why I do what I do… I am a monster to the city of Brockton Bay. And as such, someone like you must easily be able to understand what that means.”

The Dragon of Kyushu is Lung.

Lung is the Dragon of Kyushu.

Like me, he is both a ‘parahuman’ and an ‘oddity’. But my power has been split in half, to keep me sane, both sides of it. But Lung…

“Because I am the ‘monster of Brockton Bay’, I must do monstrous things. If I was the ‘city’s protector’ or ‘the hero’ I would do noble things. But I am not. And as such, I will not allow the supernatural to clash with the parahuman. Those worlds cannot mix, as you and I know well,” he said, sipping his tea politely. “But, I must maintain an ironclad hand over those that can interact with both worlds. You. Myself. Alabaster Weiss. A few others.”

Keep control over both sides of such a ridiculous conflict, especially when those that dance in between have such power… A shiver ran down my spine at the thought. I didn’t envy Lung’s job, not even a little bit.

“You and Oshino-san have been doing an excellent job of keeping them seperate with your work. In fact, aren’t you in the middle of some sort of… case right now?”

I nodded tentatively. I had been helping out Taylor with her search, mostly out of suspicion that she was _correct_.

“Yes, I heard that you met her on one of your and Panacea’s dates-”

“It wasn’t a date! We aren’t dating at all! Just because we spend time together and are a man and a woman doesn’t automatically mean we’re in love!”

Kenta smiled at me, and patted me on the shoulder in a super condescending way, as if to imply that my youth meant I didn't understand things as well as he did.

“Your mother said something quite similar to that when she first met your father, you know.”

I crossed my arms and glared at him. His smile grew wider.

“She did that as well when I asked her about him.”

“Your words are unnecessary in this scenario.”

“Ah yes, she said that too.”

This was getting me nowhere. I stood up to leave, turning away from Lung, and he sighed, setting down his tea.

“Koyomi-kun, listen. You are going to find that girl. You are going to remove the oddity. And then you are going to _continue _doing things like that until such a time as when I release you from the task. Is that clear to you?”

I swallowed, feeling my Adam’s apple bob as I looked at Lung. There was an… aura that I couldn’t really describe surrounding him, but it filled me with a sense of fear and grim realization. I’d only felt this sensation once before…

...When I’d fought Kiss-Shot.

“What… what _is _your oddity?”

He smiled at me, his white teeth almost gleaming in the sunlight. The bamboo trees around us rocked gently back and forth before he stood up, holding out his arms.

“Tell me, Koyomi-kun, do you think you can figure it out?”

The aura grew, shifting in size and form until a massive beast loomed over the house. It was the size of a skyscraper, and a head shaped like a dagger opened one eye and looked at me.

“Yes,” I replied through clenched teeth, “I think I can.”

Lung had been taken by ‘the dragon’, and in an annoying turn of events, it seemed to _like_ him.

\---

I left Kenta-san’s house with a heavy heart and a heavier mind. Lung was my mother’s childhood best friend, and apparently my mother knew a lot more than I thought she did about what was going on the Bay. Mom, did you really not think I’d ever find this out? And what’s all this about ‘destiny’ and ‘fate’ anyways!? I thought you were just a policewoman! How did you manage to learn so much about the turnside of the world?!

My head hurt. I didn’t understand a lot of what Lung said, but I understood the core points well enough.

He was ‘the Dragon of Kyushu’. The oddity that is Lung required him to be a monster. If the ‘perception’ of the world changed its view on that dragon, he would change himself. Because his oddity was known to be wicked and cruel, he was wicked and cruel.

...Oddities are dangerous. I knew this, of course, intellectually, but every time I see it executed… It’s kind of terrifying. While we’ve managed thus far to keep the parahuman separate from the paranormal, if they ever started interacting on a massive scale… It sent shivers down my spine.

I headed to the meeting place that Taylor had designated, fiddling with my phone as I walked. This girl had contacted me out of the blue, babbled something about ‘possession’, and then demanded I help her out. Of course, I agreed immediately, because helping others is what you’re supposed to do. At no point did I even consider ‘that sounds like a lot of work’, or try to pawn her off to other people during the course of our relationship. That would be ridiculous. Like, what kind of twisted person would do that?

…

Okay, fine. I will admit that I _may _have attempted to ditch Taylor entirely, because the girl was seriously twisted. Even our first meeting made me understand that some people are just broken inside, that’s all.

I waited for Taylor underneath a tree near the Boardwalk. There was a bench nearby, which I sat down on before pulling out my phone to mess with it for a minute before Taylor’s on-the-dot arrival. Opening up a popular web forum on my phone, my eyebrows raised as I flinched a bit at one of the threads.

Ahhh, no, please stop talking about Alucard. Seriously, please. I’m begging you on my knees here, okay!? Stop talking about my chuunibyou phase in such awe! It’s totally mortifying the way people have made me out to be some kind of amazing hero when I literally vanished from the cape scene barely three days after entering it! I know that I’ve made oblique appearances since to deal with oddities, but those events aren’t even reported! Why did this have to be the part of my life where my relapse became known?!

Putting my phone away, I looked around the boardwalk. It was a quiet afternoon, and not much was going on in the area - an overworked babysitter holding the hands of a bunch of chattering children walked by the bench, looking aggrieved, and in the distance I could see a girl waitressing in a coffee shop trying to desperately catch the attention of one of her customers. A small smile began to form on my face as I closed my eyes, leaning back and letting the sun’s rays dance across my clothing.

Sometimes… I think it was the right thing to bind Kiss-Shot like we did. Even if the fragment of her left behind makes me want to cry everytime I look at her.

“It’s a nice day,” I said out loud, the sun’s shine tickling my face. It really was a nice, lazy day; just a totally ordinary time to spend outside without any worries at all. I almost wanted to take a nap, just lazing on the bench with the grass underneath my feet. The calming sensation of peace rolled over me like a dog on such a hot summer day would. It really was peaceful.

Shadows covered my splash of sunlight, and I slowly opened my eyes. A girl with brown hair and a wide mouth was frowning at me, her slightly curled hair dangling over one side of her face. She had a thin nose, and eyes filled with a scary amount of intelligence. I sighed, sitting upright and looking at her.

“Hi Taylor.”

“Araragi,” she said with a curt nod, sitting down next to me. “Have you found anything else out about where she could be?”

I sighed again. It was always like this when Taylor wanted to discuss anything supernatural at all. She had a plan of attack for every conversation, and stuck to it no matter what. It would be more annoying, but I was too serene to care at the moment.

“There’s no way I’ve managed to discover any oddities in the past 24 hours, no. I’m sorry for my incompetence, please forgive me.”

“Stop apologizing when you don’t even mean it. You barely even bothered to open your eyes when you were speaking.”

“Ahh, I’ve been found out. I’ll definitely be dismembered for not trying my best now, right? Please give my regards to Panacea.”

“Panacea said that you only do things like this to get out of having to actually make an effort.”

Panacea-san, why have you sold me down the river to such a girl? Have I hurt you in some way, recently? Is it because Victoria told me in confidence about your ‘super cute diary entries’, and even demanded I treat it like the literature it should be? I know that we sent you a message asking about the theme of your most recent entry into your private diary, but I felt like it was something we could discuss as a group.

“Panacea’s a liar. Please don’t believe everything that girl says, she’ll stretch the truth to the breaking point if she’ll get something out of it.”

Taylor blinked, peering at me suspiciously. I closed my eyes again, enjoying the breeze.

“You’re… you’re just messing with me, aren’t you?” Her voice sounded relieved, as if a massive weight left her shoulders. “You’re still going to help, even after what I did.”

I didn’t reply, keeping my eyes closed as I relaxed on this lazy afternoon. I didn’t want to think about how tedious the task Taylor wanted me to complete was. I didn’t want to think about anything at all at the moment.

“The girl who’s missing--”

“Yes?”

“How well did you know her?”

The world was quiet for a moment, and I could hear the chattering of children in the distance, and the wind in the leaves. Blue framed the picturesque scene, with not a cloud in the sky.

“I… I knew her really well. Really, really well. She… she was my best friend,” Taylor said, quietly. I opened one eye, and she was staring at a pair of girls in the distance, both laughing wildly as one lightly hit the other on the arm. “But she’s… she’s _changed_, recently.”

“Changed? What do you mean?”

Taylor grabbed her knee, pulling it close to her as she continued watching the two girls. One was smiling as the other pulled an exaggerated face, and the two collapsed into giggles together. Taylor watched the entire thing, her expression never shifting once from the stone it had been for most of the time I’d known her.

“She went from my best friend to one of the worst people I know. She… she hurt me. She hurt me really bad.”

I nodded, not really understanding.

“It was small stuff, at first. Things we used to do to her sister, or she’d do to me when she was mad. Hiding my homework. Messing with my lunch. Maybe she threw juice at me once, I don’t really remember,” Taylor said, her voice monotone. “And then it got worse. She started becoming more cruel. She started hurting more people. The things she said to me were worse and worse every time.”

What a sad story this is, really. I’m getting depressed just hearing it.

“And then… one time, she looked at me with the smile she gave me all the time, and asked me if I was going to cry myself to sleep for a week,” Taylor said, a small pleased smile on her face. I tilted my head, looking at her in confusion.

“And what’d you say in response?”

“I always thought if I was in one of those situations, I’d say something cool, right? Like, if you’re being attacked you don’t want to say “please don’t hurt me”, but something like “I’ll stop you”. I always tried to be kind, to turn the other cheek, to treat others the way I wanted to be treated."

Taylor looked at the two girls in the distance again, as they shared an ice cream cone together.

“So I reminded her that _she had cried too_.”

Ah.

Now I remember why I didn’t really want to help Taylor Hebert at all. Why I kept trying to pawn her off at every opportunity.

It wasn’t because she was a bad person. But even now I could see it, the thousands and thousands of strings extending from her as she sat there, innocent and quiet, but I could still _smell _it.

Death hung over the girl like a cloak. It draped itself around her shoulders like armor. Taylor Hebert was in no way an ordinary person, no matter how hard she pretended to be - she was a broken girl with an impossible ideal. Our first meeting was unforgettable, after all.

I don’t think anyone else has ever threatened to kill me if I didn’t help them.

“Then she vanished. And yeah, it was bad, but… I still didn’t want to see her hurt. She’s hurt me so badly, so why do I want to help her anyways?”

“Why wouldn’t you? She’s in trouble, so naturally you want to help her.”

“Araragi, I’m not the kind of low-life who enjoys being berated. What kind of weirdo would enjoy that?”

“Woah, hey. You’re attacking my character here. I’m totally pure in every meaningful way.”

"Panacea told me-"

"Forget about what Panacea said! You can't just keep using conversations you have with our mutual friend in order to start shady rumors about me!”

It was quiet for a moment. A beat of time passed, like a sheen of red over your eyes.

“But… she hurt me. She hurt me _so badly_.”

What a idealistic notion of friendship I'm seeing on display here. Obviously, a friend isn't just some normal person you kind of care for. Are you even talking about friendship if you wouldn't die for them? What a condescending point of view.

“Even if someone hurts you, you have to help them if you can,” I said to Taylor, looking at the sky. The sun’s rays flickered over my body, and for a moment, I had a faint memory of the fire that once struck at me when I was under the sun’s light. “That’s just the way the world works, right? If they’re in danger, you help them. That’s friendship in a nutshell.”

“Some things can’t be forgiven,” Taylor muttered, still staring at the two girls. “No matter what, there are just some things you can’t take back.”

“Everything’s forgiveable,” I replied, watching a bird take a drink from the fountain in the park. The sword of the statue pointed toward the bird’s neck, but didn’t move. “As long as you try hard enough to forgive them.”

“And then what? We go back to being best friends? Like nothing ever happened? She betrayed me in _every way imaginable_.”

“Maybe she feels the same way. Have a little perspective, why don’t you?”

Taylor glared at me, and I ignored it.

“There’s nothing she can say that would ever make me change my mind. How could you even say such a thing?”

I smiled at her, before looking away. There are some things that can’t be forgiven? I don’t want to hear that sort of thing. If I do, I’ll definitely cry. Because if some things can’t be forgiven…

Then I’d definitely have no friends in this city at all.

“Look, I’ve put out some inquiries as to where she could be. No matter what, we’ll find her. And we’ll fix whatever’s happened to make her act like this, right?”

Taylor smiled at me as she stood up, glancing at the girls one last time before looking away.

“Be careful if you find her, Araragi,” she said ominously, as she walked away.

“That girl’s a _snake_."

\---


	16. Intention 2.2

Roaming around without an actual destination was inconvenient. Not just because I had no clue where I was going, but because I didn't have a clue where to _start. _To find someone who doesn't want to be found, who's been possessed by a powerful oddity… Seriously, where would I even begin?

Instead, I made a mistake.

"Hm hm, Alucard-senpai, I definitely see why you would desire the help of a person like me," a girl said, nodding smugly as she rubbed her masked chin in approval. "I totally get that kind of heart-pounding scenario makes you want to curl up into a ball and die."

"Heart-pounding!? Woah, you're seriously misunderstanding me! It's only heart-pounding in terms of the chance of my heart no longer _beating _if she gets angry with me!"

"Ehh? Alucard-senpai, aren't you a natural-born masochist? Isn't that the sort of thing you're totally into?"

"Stop adding twisted attributes to my character! I'm not like that at all!"

"Don't worry, Alucard-senpai!" Devilgirl placed a hand on my shoulder, giving me a thumbs up. "Even masochists have a way they can fight back!"

I had messaged Devilgirl. I'd met with her several times over the last several months, and we'd chatted about various things as I'd helped her learn to use her power. It was an interesting one; sort of like the 'shapeshifting' that I had been capable of, her right arm was capable of stretching and bending to immense sizes with a massive amount of strength. It wasn't transferred to the rest of her, but that arm of hers was terrifying.

"Oy, you're straying, you're straying from the topic. Where would a kidnapped white girl end up in this city?"

"Ridiculous, Alucard-senpai," she said, waving a dismissive hand. "100% rejected. The Empire would track down any kidnapped white kids for their propaganda, and the police would actually bother to participate in the search, too."

I said a silent prayer to the Gods of political commentary, praying for leniency in the face of such outrageous statements.

"But there are way too many places to keep a kidnap victim here anyways! You'll never track her down the normal way, right? There's totally a better way to go about it! Don't you have some… Kufufu… _cape _friends, Alucard-senpai?"

"I-I guess," I said, shifting nervously. I wasn't very good at using my reduced powers. I could regenerate fine, but the level of shapeshifting I'd previously pulled off was impossible. "But how could they help me find _one girl?_"

"It's favors, favors, Alucard-senpai! The world of capes is one of 'give and take', right? Even villains follow that sort of thing. It's sort of weird, but the city _wants _to be in a stalemate," Devilgirl said with a sad smile hidden under the bandages of her mask as she looked out at the middle of the boat graveyard, where at one point there had been ships in the center. During my fight with Weiss I… I don't even remember it. But I must have done something to shift the landscape like that. "If the heroes are too strong, then the villains will all be caught, and some of them… Well, we sort of _need _them, Alucard-senpai."

"Need them? They're villains. What would we need them for?"

"Alucard-senpai, it's just absurd to expect people to capture villains at this point. When was the last time Kaiser actually _did _something in the field? He never would, because it would compromise his business. By staying out of the way, the PRT sometimes stay out of his way too. And independent heroes…"

She shook her head at me, shrugging her shoulders.

"We just do our best to stay out of the way of big names like that. We can't all be like _you, _Alucard-senpai. Even though you've stayed out of the cape scene since, you're an incredibly big name around here."

Ahh, the pain. It's like knives stabbing into my heart everytime someone uses that absolutely terrible cape name that Devilgirl gave me. It's a wave of shame that runs down my entire back every time I have to hear someone discuss my cape identity. Why is Alucard apparently so edgy and cool?! Aren't I totally ordinary most of the time!?

"Stop calling me a big name," I said to her, scratching the back of my head with my right hand. "Actually, stop starting all these weird rumors about my cape identity."

"Ehhh? Alucard-senpai, are you saying that I'm the reason your thread is super popular? Are you trying to pretend that I've done something totally shady like starting internet arguments in order to make you more popular?"

"Yes! That's exactly what I'm saying! That's exactly what I want you to stop doing!"

She huffed, turning away from me to look out at the Boat Graveyard - well, that was a bit of inaccurate name now. No boats filled the water anymore, just pieces of steel and broken things. The waves licked at the shore we were standing near, and she sighed as she looked at it.

"Alucard-senpai, you're insanely strong, right? So why aren't you doing anything for the city?"

"What do you mean?"

She held up a finger, turning back to me.

"If Alucard-senpai is supposed to be one of the strongest capes in Brockton Bay, then why does Alucard-senpai not care about what happens to the city?"

"I care about the city just fine," I said in response, raising an eyebrow underneath my domino mask. "But people can deal with their own problems, right?"

"Yeah, I guess," she said quietly, stretching her arms. Her chest jutted out as she did, and I was polite enough not to stare for longer than two seconds. "But Alucard-senpai, aren't you supposed to be a hero?"

I never felt like a hero.

When I killed Alabaster Weiss, I could barely think.

When I brought down Kiss-Shot, my mind was covered in static.

There was never a point during my time as a full vampire where I felt heroic in any way. Every aspect of my power was tainted with greed and viciousness. Even as I am now, without that full strength, I can still sometimes feel that need, that desire. To fight. To eat. To be a monster that monsters fear.

But I won't let that happen again. I can't become something as terrifying as when I fought Kiss-Shot ever again, not without losing something even more core to myself then I've already lost.

"No," I said, flicking her nose. "I'm just a mentor to the naive hero who wants to save the city."

"Hm hm, I guess that is a good role for the likes of you, Alucard-senpai. I'm seriously impressed with your talents."

She moved like a blue flash, her body whirling before me as she gave me a thumbs up, and reached upwards towards her mask.

"Woah, what are you doing exactly?"

Devilgirl looked at me with what could be confusion, even with her mask covering most of her face.

"Obviously, I'm unmasking to my mentor, Alucard-senpai."

"Yeah, no I can see that, but you really shouldn't."

The bottom half of her mask fell off, and I could see her lips curving into an impish smile. She reached upwards for the top parts of her mask, and I closed my eyes tight to not see her face.

"Ne ne, Alucard-senpai, you shouldn't be so nervous-"

I felt something leave my face and opened my eyes.

"-It's not like I'm going to hurt you or anything."

A smiling girl with blue hair that framed her face stood in front of me. Amber eyes blinked rapidly at me, and she tilted her head in confusion as she looked at me.

"Woah, Alucard-senpai, your eyes are red, you know that right? Isn't that bad?"

"It's a side effect of my power," I said with a straight face, looking at Devilgirl. "Why'd you want to unmask?"

"Obviously, to repay you for all your help!" She reached out a hand to me with a smile, "I'm Surugu Kanbaru, please take care of me from now on!"

… I've really entered a tedious situation.

\---

Kanbaru had refused to take no for an answer as I attempted to escape her vicious clutches on my person. She had demanded to know my full name, my address, and my phone number. When I argued that she already had my phone number, she'd retorted that she'd had the phone number of 'Alucard-senpai', who was 'totally unrelated to Araragi-senpai in every way', and then stolen my phone and done it herself. By the time I'd finally fled the Boat Graveyard, I had feared for not only my future, but for my purity as well. 

But I'd left with a reason.

As much as I find the underbelly of Brockton Bay to be distasteful, that's no reason to not participate in it. I stood in front of a small bar on the outskirts of town. It was rickety, worn down, and in general not a place that many people would visit. A flickering neon sign overhead showed the name of the bar, next to the logo it bore proudly. The walls outside were covered in gang signs - but it was _every _gang sign, not just one or two that signaled protected territory.

Somer's Rock was a place where a person could buy information on most things. It was a neutral ground for every cape in the city, much like the boat graveyard was where most new capes went to test their powers. I fiddled with my domino mask nervously, before mustering up my courage and opening the rickety doors.

Inside, the bar was mostly empty. A few tables were filled in the back, and I could see Rune out of the corner of my eye cackling madly as she fleeced Othala for what must have been the sixth time this week. The older girl had yet to learn that Rune cheated like mad whenever anyone played cards with her, and accused the other person of cheating if she even fell slightly behind in a game. Hookwolf grunted as I entered, giving me a nod and a death's glare, and I could even see Oni Lee quietly folding paper cranes in one end of the bar. It was a weird scene, but it was one I was well familiar with; I had been here plenty of times before now.

"Alucard," Hookwolf drawled, jamming a finger into his ear and twisting it before pulling it out. He flicked the gunk on his index into some corner of the bar, not even flinching at the vicious glare the girl behind the counter sent his way. "What are you doing here this time?"

"Just looking for information," I said with a shrug, walking over to the counter and sitting down. The bartender nodded at me, and handed me a glass of water that I swirled around for a moment. "A girl's been kidnapped and I'm supposed to find out where she is."

"What the fuck is with this heroic bullshit you've been up to?" Hookwolf said, his eyes narrowing. He nudged Othala, who gave him a tired look. "Are you believing this shit?"

She shrugged her shoulders, turning back to Rune with a frown. The younger blonde smiled brightly and lay down another hand, and Othala's shoulders slumped. Othala, there's absolutely no way she managed a Royal Flush like that. You do know this, right? She's cheating every hand! Please pick it up soon and reform her into a better person!

"Shut up, Hookwolf," a boy my age said, lazily spinning in his chair. He wore a white frilled shirt that was open to around the middle of his chest, and his brown hair bounced as he spun. The theater mask he wore was currently a happy smile, but the crown on his head gave away his identity easier than anything else. "If you're _still _angry that Alucard killed Alabaster, maybe you should have won your fight before he did it."

The air grew cold around me and I felt as droplets of sweat began to form on my neck. I really didn't like Regent.

“Yeah, he killed Alabaster, and he won’t even fucking touch any of the ABB,” Hookwolf said, turning away from me. “He’s just a coward, in the end. What a fucking embarrassment, with that kind of power? Nobody even bothers _trying _to recruit him.”

I smiled at him brightly, tipping my glass to him. Hookwolf growled, draining his glass and standing up.

"Othala, I'm leaving. Keep an eye on your friend so he doesn't ruin any more Empire ops with his stupidity."

She waved a hand as he exited the bar, the doors clacking behind him. Regent sidled over to me, his face hidden behind his mask.

"So, what are you looking for this time, Alucard?" He said, lazily spinning his scepter. "Drugs? Money? A job offer? Or perhaps… me?"

"None of those! I don't want any part of those things at all!"

Regent tilted his head back as he looked at me, and I could see the curves of a smile underneath his mask.

"You really are kind of boring, Alucard," he said, tapping my nose with his scepter. "But that's what I like about you. There are way too many interesting people in my life. Someone as plain and average as you is pretty refreshing."

"Thanks for the compliment," I replied, taking a sip of my water. "But I'm here for information. Do you know anything about a red-haired girl who was kidnapped a few weeks ago?"

"Got a name?"

"Emma Barnes. She went to Winslow."

His lips moved downwards under the bit of his mask that I could see, and he sighed with distaste.

"That's going to be a bit harder, Alucard," he said, moving his mask a bit further off his face to sip his wine. I could see lithe features underneath, the hint of a thin jaw and a face too beautiful to be called handsome. "Winslow's a pit. It's impossible to get good information out of."

"What do you mean?"

He looked at me, and I could tell underneath his mask he was raising an eyebrow.

"What do I mean? Winslow has spies from _everyone _at it. The Empire. ABB. Merchants. The PRT. There's so many falsehoods and fake stories that you can never tell which ones are accurate."

"You can," I said, my eyes narrowing. He'd done it before, for me. It had taken a day or two, but the next I'd seen Regent he'd handed me an astonishingly informative packet of information that he'd declared was 'on the house' for 'wasting someone else's time'. I still didn't know what he meant. "You've gotten information out of harder places."

"This go-between thing really isn't working," Regent muttered, scratching his ear. "You'd have to meet with my boss and work out a real deal."

"Why?"

I couldn't help asking it. I _liked _working with Regent. He was sarcastic, a bit annoying, but he got to the point and didn't beat around the bush. He didn't lay traps with his words like Faultline, or try to get more information out of me then I wanted to give like Coil's brokers. But every time I spoke to him, I could tell that there was someone… or some_thing _feeding him info. His power, maybe? But that was impossible, Regent was listed as a minor Master on the wiki. Then again, I was listed as a Brute/Changer/Shaker, and that wasn't even remotely true. In the end, I was just a Shaker with an oddity piggybacking on my power.

"Because she's a total hassle when it comes to giving you info, Alucard," he said bluntly as he looked at me. The wine settled in his glass, and he began slowly rotating the cup, watching the wine as it crept closer and closer to the edge. "She's been complaining about how you won't deal with anyone but me for weeks now."

"You're the easiest of her crew to deal with," I pointed out to him. In the background I could hear Rune murmur in agreement, and the sound of flesh hitting flesh as Othala _finally _caught her cheating. The rest of Regent's crew were…

Well, the best way to put is that they weren't common guests at Somer's Rock. Most villains and rogues spent at least a _bit _of time here, if only to learn more about the competition and how best to avoid or deal with them. Regent's group of thieves had only ever showed up once_, _and the instant one of them had seen me, she'd jolted upwards, turned around, and left. I'd felt a bit hurt, because I didn't even know who she was until later. That girl was weird, though. Regent had told me she even _named _her power. Who even does that?

And why would you name it something as ridiculous as 'Imaginary Numbers'!? Please don't reference other works when it comes to your abilities! It makes it really obvious what you can do!

"Yeah, I guess. But that doesn't change the facts - I won't be able to give you the info you want. You'll have to meet in person," he said, patting my shoulder in condolences. I slumped. "Do your best, because one of them really hates you. Did you accidentally molest her or something?"

"I've never even met her! I only saw her that one time!"

"Yeah, but Othala told me you looked at her really lewdly the first time she met you. She would have called it sexual harassment, but Victor assured her that your lewd stare wasn't even good enough to rate as a skill."

"I didn't look lewdly at Othala in any way! I was just confused as to which cape couple had arrived at the graveyard, that's all! Please stop trying to cause misunderstandings for me, I know people who would get dangerously upset!"

Regent gave me a thumbs up, sort of like a lazy kind of promise. I nearly teared up at it, knowing that at last, there was at least one person in my life who I could trust. Regent… thanks.

"When are you free for a meeting?" he asked, taking another sip of his wine. "My boss is pretty busy, so she can't just free up a slot for you whenever."

"What about tomorrow?"

"Nah, tomorrow I've got a tournament thing," Regent said, waving his hand. "There's 50 dollars on the line _and _I get to watch children cry. It's like Christmas came early for me, Alucard."

...Some of the people here take disturbing amounts of pleasure in cruelty.

"It's not like I can pay or anything, you know," I said, and Regent snorted at that. I hadn't paid anyone here for information at any point in my career. "I can give you-"

"-A favor, yeah. That's what we've been trading on, right? Favors."

I was supposed to be one of the most powerful capes in the city. That was the only reason my currency was as valuable was it was. With the amount of debt I already owed Oshino, I had recently become something of a miser. I saved and penny-pinched every single way possible, even to the point that Panacea had started complaining that she felt fat every time we ate out and I didn't eat again.

"Of course, I can always give you a few more!" I offered. I had become something of an odd-jobs sort of guy for the gallery of rogues that loitered around Somer's Rock. Swapping a list of Empire patrol routes that had been attacked in exchange for sparring with Hookwolf. Trading the Clarendon class list for spying on a PRT meeting. A book on Japanese spirits in exchange for Victor siphoning some of my knowledge of Japanese.

Hey, wait a minute - didn't I get totally ripped off there?! The book was **in **Japanese! I'd been furiously reviewing my kanji with a dictionary recently in order to understand more of it, was it because my language had become yet another thing taken by the white man!?

"Nah, my boss is full up on favors for now," Regent replied, slowly drinking his wine. "She just wants to meet _you _for some reason. Says she's got an interesting idea."

"What kind of idea?"

Regent put his hand on my shoulder, and placed his wine glass on the bartop.

"I'll be honest with you Alucard, because we're friends."

Regent, if you keep saying things like that you're really going to set my heart pounding-!

"You should absolutely not meet with Tattletale," he said bluntly. "She will devour you like a rabbit."

"I'm not that helpless."

"No, you absolutely are. You are genuinely one of the most socially inept people I've ever met. And before you say anything like 'it's called going with the flow, can't you read the mood?!', Tattletale _can _read the mood, and she's _much better _at manipulating it then you are."

My shoulders slumped, and my hair began to droop downwards as Regent insulted me. He was right, but couldn't he be a little more polite about it?! It's not like I'm trying to be an incompetent or anything, it just ended up that way!

"But, there is a solution," Regent said, holding up his other hand and flicking it. As if by magic, a card had appeared in his hand, and he turned it around to reveal the joker. "You show up, but I speak for you."

I looked at the angel in front of me like it had just descended from heaven itself.

"She's free right now, in fact," he said, standing up abruptly as he pocketed the joker and extended his hand to me. "Let's go see what she wants, shall we?"

I stood up, and shook Regent's hand with a determined look on my face. There was no way I'd let Tattletale get the better of me _again._

_\---_


	17. Intention 2.3

We stood in front of a small apartment building. A light flickered on and off on the staircase leading up to what Regent claimed was the Undersiders’ apartment, and I shuffled nervously as I looked at the door. I was a bit uncomfortable with Regent’s lackadaisical nature at times - but this seemed a bit much, right?! We’re just showing up at the door without any warning signs at all and he’s knocking on it like it’s nothing!? Regent, shouldn’t you show a little respect for your fellow teammates?

A blonde head popped out of the door, without a mask, looked at us, screamed, and closed it.

“She’ll be right back, Alucard,” Regent said confidently. He moved a hand to his mask, covering one of the eyeholes as he fiddled with it. “But we have her off-guard now. Just let me do the talking.”

Regent, I feel like you’re going to get us both killed if you continue down this dark path. Please consider others before taking actions that they will regret for you.

The door opened a crack, and a blonde girl stepped out. She was wearing a domino mask on her face, and had her hands shoved into an oversized hoodie that advertised some obscure book series called ‘Maggie Holt’ that I’d never heard of. She had no pants on that I could see, and I stared luridly at her creamy-white legs for a moment before moving my eyes away and pretending I absolutely had not looked at them at all. The girl gave Regent a vicious glare, pulling her hands out of the hoodie and crossing her arms across her chest. Her bare foot tapped impatiently.

“Well?” she said. “I’m waiting, Regent.”

“Not really sure what you want me to say, Tats,” he drawled in response, spinning his scepter. “Besides, I come bearing gifts!”

He pointed at me. Tattletale looked me up and down, and I tried my best to be impressive, but she scoffed anyways.

“Gifts? What kind of seventh-rate gift shop have you been frequenting? This guy’s useless. Totally ordinary in every way.”

She paused for a moment, tapping a finger to her lips, before snapping her fingers and pointing at Regent again.

“Oh, yeah. That reminds me. Stop bringing people over without telling anyone. It’s fucking annoying.”

“I don’t ordinarily bring people over, but would it kill the rest of you to relax a little bit? Maybe play some video games or something?”

“I play video games,” I said, trying to find a way to insert myself into the conversation. “Every now and then.”

Regent’s eyes sparkled beneath his mask.

“Yeah, see Tats? He’s my new video gaming buddy,” he said, slapping his arm on my shoulder. “Do you play any shooters?”

“Shooters? No, sorry, I’m not very good at them. Side-scrolling brawlers is my genre of choice.”

Regent sagely nodded, looking back at Tattletale as he tapped his scepter to his head.

“See? Man of culture right here, Tats. Genuine guy all around. Alucard’s one of the good ones.”

Tattletale lifted a hand to her face, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

“Regent, I’m not an idiot. That isn’t Alucard. He’s just some student from Arcadia who thinks that anyone can be a cape if they put on a domino mask.”

Regent took his arm off of me, and examined me closely. I shuffled around uncomfortably as he peered at me, scratching his chin underneath his mask.

“...You sure, Tats? ‘Cause I met him at Somer’s Rock. I’m pretty sure he’s Alucard, and if he’s not, he’s doing an impeccable job of impersonating him.”

Tattletale’s eyes darted back and forth between me and Regent, and her smile grew eerily wide, as her eyes danced. I started to back down the steps.

“W-well it was really nice to meet you Tattletale!” I babbled as I moved one foot behind the other, waving at the duo who watched me as I moved. “It’s super cool that you’re psychic and all, but I really must be going! We heroes have lots to do, you know! People to save, villains to catch-”

I tripped.

I tripped and fell down their stairwell, clattering at the bottom, my head smashing into the concrete with a very unsatisfying crunch. I groaned as I sat up, rubbing my forehead in a daze as I looked up. A blonde-headed blur was walking down the steps slowly, speaking.

“See, here’s what I’m thinking,” it said in a condescending tone, as if I wasn’t worthy of being spoken to. “I’m thinking that there’s a reason that what I read off of you and what I read off of Regent are two different things. When I look at you, all I get is ‘ordinary high school student at Arcadia High’, and ‘thinks your thighs look fantastic’ - thank you for the compliment, by the way. But when I read Regent, I’m getting ‘knows something you don’t’, and ‘pleased to introduce you to a new cape’. But you aren’t a new cape, are you?”

She stood in front of me, peering down at my face as my bleeding body healed. My vision swam back into focus, just so I could stare at a very, very pretty set of green eyes and a thin nose. A heart-shaped face was inches from my own, blonde hair very fetching as it cascaded down to her shoulders, her lips full and curved upwards into a smile.

Damn you, half-vampirism! What’s your use if I still blush!? When I was a vampire, I never blushed unless I wanted to! What’s with this unfair trade off compared to previously?! Give me back my ability to brood!

“Here’s what I’m thinking, Alucard. I’m thinking I know your face. I’m thinking that Regent outed me to you, and brought you here for a reason. He isn’t stupid. He knows I’d be pissed as hell if he brought someone back for something as idiotic as playing video games.”

“I would totally do it though,” Regent offered, leaning against the railing at the top of the stairs. I looked at him, and he gave me a thumbs up. “Especially for you, buddy. You’re a pretty fun guy.”

Tattletale rolled her eyes, holding up a clenched fist. She moved it in front of my face, and one finger popped up. I went cross-eyed to stare at it closer. Tattletale had really nice looking fingers. Genuinely top-of-the-line in every way.

…

W-w-w-wait a minute! I-I’m definitely not developing a crush on a supervillain or anything! That’s absurd, right!? I can’t be crushing a supervillain, because for one, Panacea would totally kill me, and for two, she’s clearly plotting something! If I get distracted by her feminine wiles, I’ll never be able to escape her clutches!

Ahh… to be in Tattletale’s clutches…

No Koyomi! Pull yourself together!

“One,” she said, with a small smile on her face. “You’re somehow immune to Thinker powers. That’s bullshit, but powers are bullshit.”

“Yes, let’s go with that one! I’m totally immune to Thinker powers, so don’t even try to figure me out!”

“Two,” she said, raising another finger on her hand. “You’re not immune, but your power ‘naturally misleads’ Thinkers. That’d make sense, but I’m still getting false info off you as we speak. Do you lie as easily as you breathe or something?”

Damn it. I could feel a drop of sweat run down the side of my face. Tattletale was treading on dangerous territory. If I didn’t mislead her quickly, she’d get on the bad sign of someone actually dangerous.

“Three,” she said, blissfully ignorant of the danger she was entering as she raised a third finger on her hand. “I own you now.”

This was my moment! I had to seize it now before the chance slipped out of my fingers--!!

"Regent offered to speak for me!" I blurted out, freeing myself from Tattletale's pace. "He said that he'd deal with you because I couldn't do it!"

Tattletale blinked, looking at the boy in the frilled shirt.

"You did that?"

"Ah. Yes, I did do that."

"You... willingly decided to do more work... for someone else?"

Regent nodded again. Tattletale looked at me, tears shining in her eyes. I was left more than a little uncomfortable.

“Alucard,” she said seriously, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I can absolutely not let you leave my nefarious grasp. Please come work for us so that Regent will put in more effort.”

“Ah, sorry, I can’t,” I replied, grabbing her hand off my shoulder and clutching it tightly with both of mine. “Please forgive me, but I am but an ordinary high school student trapped by the whims of others.”

“Please let me trap you in my whims. There is no limit to what I’d do to get Regent to consistently work.”

“I cannot, for I am too deep in debt to ever be allowed to go free so easily. Please allow me to retain my chastity from breaking the law, I don’t think it would be good for me.”

She dropped my hand with all the ceremony of someone throwing away garbage, taking a step back and smiling brilliantly at me.

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyways,” she said, shrugging her shoulders as she winked at me. “I own you anyways.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I know that you can spoof Thinkers somehow. Do you have any idea how scary that is? Do you know what people would do to you if that information got out? On both sides. You’d be trapped, forever running mazes that other people set out before you. Maybe you’d even get cheese at the end, but it’s still a fucking maze. Even if you win, you lose. So you’re on my call list. If I call you and ask for help, you come.”

“I’m neutral though,” I said, trying to think my way out of it. “I’m not a hero or a villain, even though I’m so suave that you could easily confuse me with Legend.”

A beat passed, as Regent and Tattletale looked at me. I didn’t blush this time, and it definitely wasn’t because I manipulated my blood flow so that way all the red ran to my toes.

“I don’t believe you,” Regent offered, propping his head up on his arm as he leaned on the railing of the apartment’s entrance. “You’re so ordinary it loops around to extraordinary, Alucard.”

I ignored him, looking at Tattletale.

“I’ve seen your face.”

“Yeah, but you won’t tell anyone."

“I could.”

She smiled at me.

“You won’t. You’re not very good with girls, are you? Even I can tell that much.”

I looked to Regent in desperation for aid, and he tilted his mask enough that I could see his lips curve into a smile.

“I like you, Alucard,” Regent said, in that lazy tone of voice he had. “I really, really do. But if it’s between you or the Undersiders… Well…”

He shrugged, bouncing off the railing and his shirt waving in the wind as he did. His arms moved outwards far enough that it looked like he was trying to give someone a hug.

Damn it.

Damn me, damn them, damn it all.

I’d been outmaneuvered, utterly. Not just by Tattletale, but by Regent. It was all a trap. A way to get me into a position where I ‘couldn’t refuse’. Nothing I could say could let me slip away without giving something up. I was in a position where there was nothing to do but give in.

Weren’t these guys supposed to be low-tier villains!? Mob characters or something?! Why the hell are they so good at making these kind of plays! Apologize to all the bit characters out there, because you’re seriously letting yourselves be underestimated for no reason!

“If it’s any consolation, Alucard,” Tattletale said as she winked at me, green eyes sparkling like stars. “If I wasn’t so clever I’d never have figured that out. That’s a scary power you’ve got there.”

Yeah, it is, Tattletale. That’s why I don’t want to have to show it to you anymore.

“Fine,” I said as a reply. “I’ll do it in exchange for information.”

“Information? I deal with a lot of people, what kind of information are you looking for?”

“Emma Barnes. Winslow student who went missing. I want to know her whereabouts, or at least her last known location.”

“Why? What would you get out of it?”

I didn’t want to answer. But I’d seen her face. It’s only right to reciprocate, right?

I reached up to my domino mask, and took it off. Red eyes met green and Tattletale snickered a little bit, before bursting out laughing.

“Oh fuck no. You’re Panacea’s boyfriend.”

"We're not dating," I said automatically. "Panacea said that if anybody ever told her that I said we were dating, she would kill every individual cell in my body and then replace them so that way I was never sure if I was a clone of myself or myself."

Tattletale gave me a pitying look.

“How has nobody found out who you are, yet? You’re the most obvious cape in the city. Even before you unmasked I had a pretty good idea of who you were. You’re in dozens of pictures with one of the most well-known capes here wearing almost the exact same outfit.”

“I like to think that it’s because of my endless wit and charm.”

Regent nodded as he walked down the stairs, his scepter tapping his shoulder. Tattletale turned to look at him, before shrugging her shoulders and sighing.

“Well,” she drawled, the word dangling at the end of a sentence like a fish on a hook. “I’ll take that offer. I’m sorry Alucard, but even if you’re friends with Regent we can’t let you inside. Interpersonal issues and all, you understand right?”

“I don’t follow,” I countered, my eyes narrowing. Tattletale looked away from them as I stood up, and I looked down at my shirt. I had to hold back a groan; it was covered in my blood again. “Have I offended you in some way? It’s not my fault you chose not to wear pants outside, you know! I wasn’t expecting some kind of super cute girl to be hanging out at Regent’s apartment!”

Lisa looked at Regent, who gently placed a hand on her shoulder and nodded. Her shoulders sagged and she shook her head, muttering something that I couldn’t hear. It was probably about how my demeanor was more fitting to that of ant, or a minnow than a human being.

“It’s not you,” she said, biting her lip. “Well, not Alucard, at least. It is about you. One of our teammates has some… problems with you. Okay, they’re more than problems. You’re probably my last resort if things are completely fucked because of her. She hates you. Despises you. Everything in the world, according to her, is your fault.”

That didn’t narrow down the list of people who that could be. Panacea acted like that whenever I ignored her insistent text messages about my well-being.

Speaking of, I should probably respond to the last one. I pulled out my phone and informed Panacea that the Undersiders are a super cool group who we should absolutely spend more time hanging out with. I made sure to put my phone away before she sends me another rant about how villains are bad, because everyone is inherently evil.

Panacea-san, I sincerely believe you need a therapist.

“I’ll send you a package with the info on Emma tomorrow,” Tattletale said, scratching her head. “Just give me your number and it’ll be easy enough. She’s pretty well known around the city, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”

I nodded, and we exchanged numbers as I took my leave. I paused before leaving, turning my head around and watching the two walk up the stairs.

“You know,” I said with a sad smile as I looked at them. Regent and Tattletale turned back around, Regent’s mask still half-off his face and revealing a small smile, while Tattletale’s green eyes sparkled in the fading sunlight. “I would have helped you out anyways, Regent. Aren’t we supposed to be friends?”

I left.

What a joke. Seriously, Regent’s twisted. Was everything just a ploy to get me to help them out? That’s ridiculous, right? He didn’t need to go through all this trouble.

The wind was cold against my skin as I walked, the sun’s rays slowly vanishing beyond the line of the horizon. Brockton always got cold at night; it was just kind of a depressing city at times. I had a destination in mind, but it was a bit further then I wanted to walk - that aloha bastard didn’t seem to want to set up anywhere else. Did he really like that abandoned building so much?

I missed Kiss-Shot.

No, I missed my friend, Kiss-Shot. Not the one I’d fought. I missed that innocent and naive girl who was so hopeful it made you want to die. I missed the girl who said so much and so little in such a short period of time. It was always things like this that made me think of her.

Betrayals.

Arrogance.

The way humans treat each other.

Was she right? Were we truly all so terrible that we deserved to be ruled? I didn’t want to believe it, but somehow, thinking of how those two had just treated me…

I shook my head to free my mind of those thoughts, my lips set in a firm line. I didn’t believe that, even for a second. People are kind to each other, even when they don’t want to be. People are polite, even when others are cruel. As a point of reference --

When I entered the abandoned building, I saw a man in an aloha shirt standing next to a plain-looking girl with glasses. The two were sitting on a bench near a leafless tree in the center of the courtyard, the stars visible through the hole in the roof. The tree was bare of bark, of color, and it seemed like life itself went against it. But when I looked closer, my skin crawled; it was covered in bugs. Ants raced up and down the branches, spiders spun webs between the cracks, centipedes crawled out of holes. Taylor’s power was creepy.

“Hey there, Araragi-kun,” Oshino waved at me from his seat with a smile as he put a cigarette in his mouth and let it dangle. “Hebert-chan was just telling me how terrible you’ve been to her.”

“You really shouldn’t use Japanese honorifics in English, you know,” I said as a way of response. “People might get upset.”

“Eh? Araragi-kun, are you saying that we should drop the only thing that differentiates us from an ordinary parody work? Just because we’re all ‘speaking in English’ doesn’t mean that I can get rid of classical character tropes.”

“What the hell do you mean character tropes! You’re just doing it because you like the sound of the suffix at the end of my name!”

He tapped his chin, and then nodded. Taylor blinked, and looked confused.

“Ah yes, I suppose that is true,” he said, in lieu of a response. “But wouldn’t you agree?”

“Ar-a-ra-gi-kun~”

I kicked him in the shin instead of answering. Taylor frowned at me.

“You shouldn’t bully people, Araragi,” she said, her voice low. “I hate bullies.”

Flies started buzzing around me, and I stared at her.

“Don’t tell me how to treat this guy! He’s seriously off, okay?! He’s not normal like you or me! Just let it go this once, alright!?”

She nodded, and Oshino grinned.

“Now, Taylor’s been telling me about her friend,” he said as he spread his legs out, and rested his elbows on his knees. His fingers formed a steeple in front of his cigarette, but it remained unlit, and, as such, it did not add any aesthetic appeal to the scene. “And I think I’ve uncovered the gist of what’s possessed her.”

His smile grew broad and he placed one leg on the bench, standing on top of it and throwing his arms wide.

“Now, let’s talk strategy, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time: oshino explains the plot of arc 2 to me


	18. Intention 2.4

“Strategy?” I asked Oshino, looking at him. His clothes were the same as always, a pink hawaiian shirt and a pair of brown shorts. His eyes were  _ tired,  _ worn and old as they looked into mine. His skin seemed paler than usual, and his demeanor was a bit less upbeat. “It’s the same as always though? ‘Beat up the oddity until it cries’.”

“Are you planning to beat up my friend, Araragi? Is that what this discourse is for, Araragi? Although I would ordinarily be shocked and appalled at your actions, I am instead simply disappointed. It is to be expected of someone like you.”

“W-what!? Exactly what are you trying to imply here!? I’m not some sort of monster, you know!?”

“Yes, this is true. Would the Araragi ignore someone for a week only to tell her that he is going to beat up her friend? Would he do something like that?”

I clicked my tongue and looked away from Taylor, acknowledging my defeat. I couldn’t really compete with her in these kind of word games, she always managed to get the upper hand somehow. I didn’t like being around her, that much. She reeked of death, the kind of stench that can only be created when someone has been around decay.

“I suppose it is a natural situation for someone like you,” she said, tapping her finger to her lips. “If I were to determine Araragi’s characteristics towards women, I would have to accurately describe him as ‘an enemy of them’.”

“Oy! Some of my closest friends are women, you know!? Don’t let your twisted up worldview affect my reputation!”

Taylor rolled her eyes at me, looking away into a corner. I followed her gaze, and a grimace formed on my face as I flicked my vision away.

“Who’s that?”

“Nobody. Just a remnant of someone.”

In the corner, there was a girl.

She wasn’t old. She was a young girl - probably around the age of an elementary schooler. Her knees were tucked into her chest, and she wore a white dress with a red line that ran around the middle. On her head was a motorcycle helmet, and she had golden eyes - empty and blank of anything.

“Ah, you finally noticed her, Araragi-san,” Oshino said with a flash of white teeth. He gave me a thumbs up, his cigarette dangling unlit out of his mouth. “I’ve given her a name now, you know. Don’t you want to say hello to Oshino Shinobu?”

I didn’t want to say hello to her at all.

I wanted to remember her as she had been, not as she was now. The girl with golden eyes and a smug laugh who could do anything. The girl who had, quite literally, changed my entire existence for herself.

She stood up.

“Araragi, seriously, who  _ is  _ that?”

“She’s not important, Taylor. She’s a vestige of someone else.”

The girl who had just been given a name walked over to Taylor and myself. She looked at me with blank eyes. Her hand reached up to touch my face, and her eyes remained empty of any emotion.

I missed Kiss-Shot more than I could bear.

“A vestige, a remnant… Those words don’t  _ mean  _ anything, Araragi. That’s just ways to describe someone’s state. I’m asking you who she  _ is. _ ”

I looked at Shinobu.

No, I remembered Kiss-Shot. I remembered her words to me, the look on her face as she fell, the despair when I told Oshino to save her.

I don’t know what she is right now. I barely even know what  _ I  _ am right now. Why am I still here? Why do I have half a parahuman power and half a vampire’s power? Isn’t it totally unfair? It’s ridiculous to assume that the people around me aren’t in the know about it.

What does Oshino know?

What does Taylor know?

…

What the hell do I know anyways…? I don’t understand what’s happening to me, to Shinobu, or even to Taylor. I looked up at Oshino with a bitter smile on my face, scratching the back of my head.

“Whatever Emma’s become, I’ll stop her,” I said to him, and he inclined his head to me. “Just tell me  _ what  _ she is.”

“Why it’s obvious, Araragi-san,” Oshino said to me, tapping the side of his head. “Taylor’s friend is the snake.”

“A what? I’m sorry, I must have misheard you.”

“No, Araragi-san, you definitely heard me correctly. She’s the snake.”

“Isn’t she a little out of the age range for that? Shouldn’t the snake be someone a little bit younger than I am, maybe around the age of my sisters, with a serious crush on me?”

Taylor gave me a disappointed look. I pretended not to see it to hold out hope.

“Araragi-san,” Oshino said, placing an arm on my shoulder. “You need to let go of these delusions that you’re attractive to women.”

Kch. His words hit me like a fatal blow. He’s right, but I want to have hope. When does my idyllic high school life begin, huh?! I’ve been taking blows from women for months now, and I’ve yet to see any end in sight! Seriously, where’s my cute underclassman who wants me to do my best and cheers me on at signs of trouble?! Kanbaru doesn’t count, she’s way too warped!

“Araragi,” Taylor said, closing her eyes as she smiled. A shiver ran down my spine as I felt a spider land on my cheek. “You aren’t planning to do anything untoward with Emma, are you? You don’t have any lewd intentions towards my best friend, do you?”

“N-no! Of course not! That would be absurd!”

“Would it be, Araragi? You do after all, have a small girl who apparently is related to you in some way and seems to want your attention. Would it be so absurd, Araragi, that you would desire other women to focus their attention on you?”

“Taylor,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. I looked into her eyes, and she appeared dead serious. I patted her shoulder a few times before taking a step back. “I can assure you, that there is nothing I want more than to have  _ less  _ female attention on me at all times.”

She glared at me, a frown twisting across her face. It was true that Taylor didn’t really know much about me - beyond that I knew about the supernatural, and that I hung around Panacea a lot. She didn’t know what I liked to do, and I didn’t know what she liked to do.

Should I try to change that? I felt like I should, because… Taylor wasn’t a bad person. Sure, she reeked of death and despair, but wasn’t there a time when I did that too?

“Araragi-san,” Oshino said, moving from his place on the bench. The dead tree behind him had strands of spider silk trailing from it, and dozens of eyes turned to look at him as he spoke. “It’s more dangerous than normal. An oddity designed to constrict, to trap someone in a single place. Do you think you can handle something like that?”

“Of course I can,” I said with a smile. I gave him a thumbs up, and he nodded in reply. “I’m not the sort of person to turn down a job just because it’s dangerous.”

“Maaa, if you keep using me as a resource, you’ll never pay off your debt.”

“...Are you seriously charging me for working for you?”

“That’s ten dollars, Araragi-san.”

“You’re charging me for speaking, too!?!”

“Twenty five dollars.”

“It increased?!”

I grabbed Taylor’s hand, preparing to run off with her. She wrenched her hand free, giving me a dirty look.

“I can walk on my  _ own, _ ” she said, and exited the building. I waved awkwardly at Oshino, and followed her out.

It was a nice evening, the air warm on my skin as we left. Taylor didn’t go home immediately - she never did. We walked towards the boardwalk, and a stall we passed by caught my eye. 

There was an older woman behind it, selling random pieces of clothing. She smiled at the two of us, and I saw a red ribbon that she had hung up by some hats. I stepped towards the stall, grabbing the ribbon and paid for it.

I didn’t want Taylor to be my enemy. I didn’t want  _ any  _ enemies. So maybe we just got off on the wrong foot. I have to try to correct it.

"Here," I said, handing her the ribbon I'd picked out. "Your hair's always falling in front of your eyes. Tie it back or something."

She took the ribbon, looking at me curiously as she examined it. What is she looking for traps or something!?! Just accept the gift, why won't you!?

"Ahhh, I see, Araragi," she said, with a small smile on her lips. "I thought from my interactions with Panacea that she was the one who was 'hot and cold' in your relationship, but it's actually you, isn't it? Are you something of a tsundere, Araragi?"

“Ts-tsundere!? Don’t use the words of my people against me in order to get the upper hand in our relationship!”

Taylor laughed slightly, fiddling with the ribbon in her hands. This girl was  _ frustrating  _ to deal with, I never knew what to say or do. It was like walking on eggshells with her sometimes, and other times it was like I’d known her my entire life.

What a strange person you are, Taylor Hebert.

“Say, Araragi…” Taylor said, trailing off as she bit her lip. Her hands had already tied the ribbon in her hair, but a few stray strands fell around the sides of her face, framing her glasses like a portrait as she spoke. “Can you really save Emma?”

“Of course I can. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I… I don’t think it’s ridiculous to see her as unsalvageable, though. She’s done so many  _ terrible  _ things, Araragi. Is it really okay to just let them go?”

“It’s not ‘letting them go’, it’s ‘turning a new page’. Even if Emma’s done terrible things, haven’t we all done things we regret? If a friend needs help, you help them. That’s just the way it works, right?”

“Haaah, you’re so simple, Araragi…”

I am, I guess.

I don’t think I’m all that interesting of a person. In most ways, I’m completely ordinary. It’s just in a select few that I’m different from the average person. My powers, even if they’re only half, give me something that I didn’t know I’d ever needed. Even if they were weaker, it’s not that bad.

We walked in silence for a time, before Taylor made a face and turned to me.

“I’m heading off,” she said, a sad smile on her lips as she gave me a slight wave. “I’ll see you in a day or two, Araragi.”

“Don’t you want to meet up with Panacea?” I asked her, scratching my head. “She told me I had to go beg for her forgiveness in person with food attached, so I’m heading to the hospital.”

“I don’t want to be in the way,” Taylor answered as she bit her lip. Her feet traced imaginary lines in the concrete street, and she looked away. “I’ve got my own things going on, you know? So I’ll deal with those. Just find out where Emma is, okay?”

I nodded. Taylor walked away from me, vanishing into the shadows quietly as the night crept over the city. I was alone again. It was just me and my thoughts.

For  _ now,  _ at least. I was sure that in a few minutes I’d run into some ridiculous person or another absurd scenario - maybe Victoria would fall from the sky and declare me her mortal enemy or something. I’d been insanely unlucky recently with my friends - from Regent’s sudden yet inevitable betrayal to Panacea’s constant demands, I  _ seriously  _ wanted to catch a break.

Maybe I could befriend that big-breasted class rep type in my homeroom? She seemed peaceful. I bet none of  _ her  _ friends pulled her into totally outlandish scenarios that could end with her death. We’d just do totally ordinary things together! Yeah! Like getting ice cream and watching movies! Nothing shady underneath either! Just movies and quiet times!

Ahhh… It sounded like heaven already.

I pulled out my phone and messaged Panacea to ask her what she wanted to eat. Waiting for a moment or two, I saw her reply, and a smirk covered my face.

Surprise me? Kufufu, Panacea-san, you have fallen for my most elaborate trap yet! While you think that I, Araragi Koyomi, would naturally bring something ‘we both could enjoy’, you have not seen the obvious ruse! As a vampire, I do not require food like a human would! I only eat it for fun! Therefore…

_ I can bring you something you’ll despise!  _ It’s just payback, right!? That’s okay, right?! You’ve been messing with me for months, Amy! I remember the flagpole incident!  _ And  _ the cafeteria incident!  **And ** the donut incident! You can’t trick me again! This time, I will defeat you!

I shoved my phone in my pocket, and headed for the nearest sushi place. I knew that Amy despised wasabi, so I had to cure her of her heathen ways. My little sisters, after all, loved wasabi. Possibly more than they loved me.

Actually, scratch that - they  _ definitely  _ loved wasabi more than they loved me. Karen and Tsukihi had been avoiding me for weeks now, coming home at bizarre hours and always talking about their ‘justice’ work. I didn’t know how to tell them that kicking the delinquents outside of the corner store wasn’t justice’, it was just a bit rude. But it was a bit of relief; this city was dangerous, and if Karen and Tsukihi got roped into being superheroes, I don’t think my heart could take it, even if it doesn’t beat anymore.

But that’d be ridiculous. There’s no way my adorable little sisters would  _ ever  _ do anything as dangerous as become superheroes.

My phone rang, and I picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Araragi, you’re not buying wasabi, are you?”

H-how did she see through my ruse?! Is that really Panacea on the phone!? Are you sure you aren’t piggybacking off of Tattletale’s crazy deduction, Amy!?

“N-no! Of course not! I’d never buy something you disliked just for a prank!”

“Good, it’s been a long night,” Amy let out a sigh over the phone, and I heard the sound of a lighter. She took a drag of what was probably a cigarette before speaking again, her voice tired. “No surprises, Araragi. Just go to Fugly Bob’s or something.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “I don’t mind grabbing something different.”

“I just want grease and meat. It’s been a long day.”

I nodded, and we idly chit-chatted as I walked towards Fugly Bob’s to purchase food for Amy and myself. Now that she had uncovered my trick, there wasn’t really much point in going on with it, considering that Panacea would absolutely destroy me if I had messed with her food.

“How’s your job going, Araragi?”

“Horrible,” I said with a grimace. I’d just entered Fugly Bob’s, and was maneuvering around the diner to get to the cashier. The jukebox was playing some song from the 50s, and the red chairs were so bright that they seared into my soul. I stopped in front of the bright white counter, waiting behind a few others. “I’m running into walls at every turn. It’s like Emma Barnes doesn’t  _ want  _ to be found.”

“Hmm… Well, if she’s really hiding, there’s only a few places for it, right?” Amy said as she smoked. “This city isn’t that big, Araragi.”

“I guess, you’re right. But I can’t think of anywhere that a teenage girl could hide for months, can you?”

“There’s always the abandoned mall on the hill.”

“The what?”

“The abandoned mall. It was supposed to be torn down, but nobody ever got around to it.”

How had I missed something so obvious? Am I really that dumb, Panacea-san? Am I truly such a weak-minded individual that I belong with the dirt underneath other being’s feet?

“I’ll check it out tomorrow,” I said as a response. “See you soon.”

“Bye.”

We hung up, and I ordered our food. Things weren’t exactly looking up for me, but I had a pretty good feeling about tomorrow.

Until I exited the building.

“Hey,” a tall, dark-skinned girl grunted as she walked in front of me. I looked at her with a raised eyebrow, wondering what she wanted. “You’re looking for Emma Barnes, right?”

“Yes,” I said hesitantly. She looked seriously shady. “Why?”

“ _ Bout fucking time, _ ” she said with a grin, punching me in the shoulder. I took a step back, but it didn’t hurt at all. Not much hurt me anymore. “Name’s Sophia Hess. I’m Emma’s best friend.”

I was pretty sure Taylor was Emma’s best friend, but maybe things changed in the past few months? People are pretty fickle.

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m Araragi Koyomi.”

“Araragi? I’ve heard about you in passing before,” she said, taking a step closer to me to peer suspiciously into my eyes. “Aren’t you that weird guy that’s always hanging around Panacea?”

“...Yes,” I said, my shoulders sagging in defeat. “That’s me.”

“Well, if you’re around  _ Panacea  _ you can’t be all bad,” Sophia mused as she tapped her chin. She grinned at me and snapped her fingers, pointing them at me. “Give me your phone number. I’ve  _ definitely  _ got some shit you’d be interested in if you’re trying to find Emma.”

I didn’t have any leads, so I gave her my phone number. I’m a pretty reasonable guy, you know? I don’t really mind meeting new people unless they’re trying to kill me.

“I’ll text you the info tomorrow, I’ve got shit to do right now,” Sophia said. She turned on her heel and walked away from me, holding up a hand as she did. “See ya around, Araragi.”

That was quite possibly the nicest interaction I’ve had with a girl in months.

I-is this it?! My high school debut was definitely messed up, but is it finally my time!? I know I’ve been putting it off for a while, but I really want to experience it! That beautiful far off thing that Kanbaru told me about —

_ Youth. _

I walked to the hospital with a spring in my step and a soft hope held in my heart. Maybe things weren’t as bad as they seemed, after all.


	19. Intention 2.5

I suppose now is as good a time as any to talk about Panacea. While our relationship could easily be viewed as something more than friends, but less than lovers, the routine threat of bodily harm and disfigurement has prevented me from making any attempts whatsoever in approaching such a flag. Even if our first meeting was only a few months ago, it's more then insignificantly difficult to ignore what we went through during that time; the creation and destruction of Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade is a part of me that I can't realistically ignore. A part of me that I'm shown every single time I visit Oshino, and look upon the visage of a young girl that could have ruled the world.

Panacea is nothing like Kiss-Shot. I think, what she needs most of all, is to relax a little bit. Amy's so tightly wound up I'm impressed she doesn't spin out when she leaves the hospital It's an incredibly warped kind of personality that she has, which is why it makes no sense that we get along. I'm incredibly ordinary, right? I don't have any special talents. There's nothing in my future that makes me more intriguing than others. All that I am, I owe to someone else - my powers, to Kiss-Shot, my life, to Panacea, my job, to Oshino.

The sky grew gray as I approached the hospital, a murky mixture of black and shadows that twist around themselves to form a less clear picture. Brockton Bay is _always _like this - cold, wet, and unwelcoming. It's a despondent kind of city for a despairing kind of people. There's a tingling down my spine while I stand in front of the hospital, looking at the white bricks and the bleeding cross. In the bag of food at my side, I can feel grease dripping out of it; Fugly's is not so well known for their _quality, _so much as the quantity and size. The meat taps against my leg when the glass doors slowly creak open, and I step inside, the scent of medical supplies striking against my nose.

I walked quietly through it, politely waving at doctors and nurses as they passed. One of the nurses gave me a sly wink and giggles, swatting her cohort with her arm.

Oy.

Wait a minute.

We're not dating, you know? We're not even close to dating. The more people who think that Panacea and I are attached in a romantic way, the more likely it is that she uncovers these impure thoughts that others are having, and a fast approaching death leans over my shoulder! I can see it now, as I'm walking up the stairs to the roof! The scythe of my demise is known as 'Amy Dallon', and she's more liable to _remove _my head then to forget about it!

I opened the door to the roof. Outside, a brunette stood - idly smoking a cigarette, staring out at the city. The sleeve on her right arm began falling down, revealing smooth pale skin as she twirled the cigarette in her hand. Her brown eyes glanced over to me, and a small smile crossed her face for a moment as she spun around, leaning against the cold iron of the railing as she looked at me.

"Araragi," she said, putting a cigarette up to her mouth. "Have you heard the news? Apparently there's someone out there who thinks of us as more than friends."

"Don't blame my twisted subconscious for my dreams! I can't control what I see in the dead of night!"

Amy Dallon pushed herself off the railing, her feet bouncing across the plain gray concrete of the rooftop and walked towards me. I refrained from flinching as she grabbed the bag out of my hands. Her fingers moved delicately towards her face, and she placed her cigarette between her lips before she rummaged around inside of the bag. A hum of delight emerged from her when she removed a hamburger and a side of fries, blowing smoke out as she dived back in once more and grabbed a milkshake.

"I really wish you wouldn't smoke. It's bad for you."

"Ahhh, it's like… It's like having control over my own mortality, Araragi," she said, removing the cigarette from her mouth as she handed the bag back to me and waltzed over to her usual spot, leaning against the railing while popping a fry into her mouth. "Every breath I take of smoke is like taking a drag off of death."

"As someone who's been much closer to death then you, I wouldn't recommend getting that close to it."

The brunette let out a chuckle, the cigarette dangling in her fingers as she took a deep drink of her milkshake, her pink lips gripped around the straw with delight. Neither of us spoke, content to sit in silence for a moment.

I looked at the sky as Amy ate, staring at the clear sky of Brockton Bay. Somewhere out there was a girl, with red hair who had once been the best friend of a person who had asked me for help. I wanted to find her. I _had _to find her. It wasn't right for someone to be lost in this mess. Even if it's not my fault, there's nothing to lose out of trying, right?

I blinked as a fry hit me in the face. Catching it as it fell down, I looked at it, so crisp it was more orange then brown, and raised it up to my eye, arching an eyebrow as I stared at Panacea through it.

"You look so tense, Araragi," she said, taking a drag off her cigarette before her teeth dug into the burger. Grease dripped out of the ends as she chewed, some of it falling onto the concrete floor. "Relax a little, why don't you?"

I took a bite of the fry. It was crunchier than I would have thought, and I mulled over her words as I chewed.

Relaxation. Peace. Serenity. Aren't those just different ways of saying that I'm running from my responsibilities? The duty given to me by Lung, the debt I owe to Oshino, the threats I'm repaying Taylor. All of them tie together to form one cohesive whole, a thing known as 'duty'. It looms over my shoulder like a shadow, and I can feel its claws already dragging me away from this place to where I need to be.

"The mall," I asked her as I bent down, rummaging around in the package for a burger, "Have you been there recently?"

"To the abandoned one? No, of course not," Amy replied with a wave of her hand. Tendrils of smoke drifted around her face as she spoke, giving her an almost mysterious feeling. "It's been shut down for years, Araragi. There's something weird over there - a feeling like you could be consumed if you stayed too long."

Consumption.

Taylor.

Emma.

Sophia.

There's a connection here, one that's just out of my reach. I can't see it, even if I reach so far out my fingers could touch the sky. What is it that separates Taylor from Emma? What is it that makes her so certain that what happened to Emma was an act of the supernatural, as opposed to just an ordinary kidnapping? Was it the suddenence of the disappearance? Did someone tell her?

...What even is the dividing line between the supernatural and parahumans anyways? How do you tell when someone is 'a supernatural existence', versus using 'a parahuman power'? This kind of stuff is way too intelligent for me. I can feel my brain steaming just trying to unpack it all.

"Penny for your thoughts, Araragi?"

I looked up at Amy, who was peering at me with a worried look on her face. Barking out a laugh, I stood with a burger in my grasp, and took a bite.

D-Delicious…! The way the meat melts in your mouth, the American cheese that isn't too cooked so that way it still maintains consistency, the grease-!

This wasn't just a burger. It was truly the work of the Gods! Ahhh, I'm going to cry if I think any more seriously about this. It's the kind of art that only a true connoisseur of fast food could understand. The hint of chili, that dash of barbeque sauce… Even if it's greasy, now I know it as well as I know myself.

Fugly Bob's is truly the greatest burger in Brockton Bay. To say otherwise is to lie.

I gave Amy a pitying look, wiping my face of the grease. I doubt she would understand the hamburger artisans behind such a work's meaning. She would never understand the magic in the meat.

"...You haven't said anything, but I can tell you're thinking something that would piss me off."

"Ah, it's nothing," I replied, raising my burger to her. "You wouldn't get it."

Amy frowned at me. I took another bite, and we fell into silence for a time. Meat was consumed, milkshakes were drank, and fries were eyed and then quietly tried with a bit of milkshake dipping outside of the eyeline of the other person.

When we were finished, I looked at Panacea, scratching the back of my head.

"You know, Taylor really looks up to you," I said to her. Amy blinked at me, tilting her head.

"Who?"

Ahhh, come on… Not this joke again, Panacea-san. It's not very funny, you know? I know you forget her name every time you meet her, but it's not a really cute quirk to have! This isn't a shonen anime, okay?! It's not a character trait to be bad with names, it's just really inconvenient for the progression of the story! Stop interrupting your narratives so that way you can tell poorly written puns, it's not a good use of your time!

"Taylor. The girl who I've been helping investigate the disappearance of her friend? Brown haired? Tallish for a girl? Wears glasses?"

"Oh, right!" Amy snapped her fingers, smiling smugly as she nodded. "_Taylor. _That's who you were talking about. Yeah, she's really enjoying the wards, you know? Even if I'm jealous of the immense size of her breasts, I can respect someone who does their job."

"No, not _Cat. _I'm talking about _Taylor._"

"What're you asking about Yale for?"

"Please stop messing with me, my heart can't take it much longer."

"Ahhh," Amy waved a hand through the air, smoke dangling as her fingers drifted. "But your heart doesn't _beat_, Araragi. You can't take anything at all, can you?"

No. I can't. Panacea-san, please forgive your humble servant for his faults. I simply wish to live a peaceful existence.

"Did you talk to Lung yet?"

"Ah. Yes, I did."

Amy looked at me, peering at my face with a raised eyebrow. I stared at a spot slightly above her left ear.

"Did he say anything?"

That my mother knew about the supernatural. That he expected me to complete any tasks. That even if I was my mother's son, he'd kill me in a heartbeat if I failed.

"Nothing important," I replied. "I can handle it."

Panacea rolled her eyes, bouncing on her heels as she rocked back and forth. Amy was a bit jumpy today, but I couldn't think of why - everything had been pretty easy to deal with for a while. Nothing ridiculous had happened in Brockton for weeks; just simple things that we could take as they came.

"You sure? You think you can handle a lot of things."

"Yeah, don't worry," I said with a thumbs up and a grin. "I've got this one under control."

Amy shrugged her shoulders, stretching her back in an arch. She took one last long drag of her cigarette and jammed it onto the railing, leaving the blackened tar along it before flicking it over the edge of the roof. She turned to face me, and I had to squint a bit to look at her; the sun was setting about now, and it splashed rays everywhere over her form, bleeding hints of orange and purple that sunk deep into the concrete.

"Don't go doing anything stupid like dying, Araragi," the girl said to me. Her shoulder brushed mine as she walked past, raising a hand by the back of her head when I turned to follow her movement. "I'm not through with you yet."

I'm sorry Panacea-san, but my heart can't take such dangerous words. If you say things like that any more often, I-I… I might have to read your diary more often! Have you truly forgiven me so fast?! It's really kind of you, but it makes me worried for my future!

Amy left me on the roof and I stayed there for a moment, staring at the sky. The fries had gotten soggy from the grease, and I ate quietly as I thought, leaning against the railing of the hospital roof. The sky was a clear blue, with only a few clouds floating through it. I left the roof quickly, content with being ignored by most of the staff as I walked out of the hospital. Pulling out my smartphone, I looked up the location of the abandoned mall; and set off at a lazy pace.

I didn't even bother telling Taylor about it, because there probably wasn't anything there. Seriously, an abandoned mall? What a low-class location for a high-class person like Emma. It's utterly doubtful she'd be anywhere around there; because I haven't had the heart to tell Taylor the simple truth of the supernatural.

If it doesn't want to be found, there's little chance for either myself or her to ever find it. The supernatural comes and goes as it pleases, fluttering in and out of reality with all the care of a rampaging bull. The endless dance of 'normal' and 'abnormal' that exists in our world is impossible to follow. It falls through your fingers like a sieve.

The streets were filled with people at this time, all coming and going from their workplaces to their houses or vice versa. I leaned out of the way as a couple passed me by, murmuring soft words to each other that made them smile something secretive. A girl's face flashed through my mind, and I banished it to the back of it. I couldn't do anything to help her.

I'd killed her, after all.

I'd saved her, after all.

Realistically, I can't deny that what I did to Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade is a cruelty beyond even words. I ripped her into shreds, and in return was ripped into shreds. The closeness that I am forced to share with her stabs at my soul everytime I see the small face of the girl she had become. To turn the master into a servant is a sin that I can never free myself from; something created from my own selfishness.

I was nearing the abandoned mall. You see, in the end, Panacea _is _right about me. It's not that dangerous situations happen around me, it's that I'm attracted to dangerous situations. It's better that I'm hurt then someone else; because I can live through things other people can't. And more power is barely a thought away. All I'd have to do is-

My mind screeches to a halt as my body screeches with it. In front of me is the criss-crossing garish sight of warning tape; wrapped around pillars and surrounded by a chain link fence, lies the mall.

It's definitely abandoned, that much I can tell with a glance - the bricks are worn down to nothingness, and the glass doors are cracked and broken, with rusty metal rods to prop them up. Ivy crawls up the walls like the frayed strands of a shirt, and the floors that must have once shined so brightly are covered in weeds, flowers growing in between the cracks in the concrete.

Yeah. This feels like the place. I can feel that faint tinge of energy in the air, an electric tang on my tongue when I open my mouth to breathe. The supernatural sort of has a _taste_, apparently. At least to me - when I told Oshino he looked at me and said with a posed look that it must be how my _parahumanity _processes it. I am, after all, a unique existence - one who can walk with both sides of the divide, and interact with them as I please.

It's tough.

Ducking under the yellow caution tape, the wind brushes past my hair and through my fingers as I move towards the doors. Pushing one of them open, it lets out a long sigh, the sound of a piece of metal that hadn't been touched in a very long time. I entered the abandoned mall - pausing for a moment to look around. It didn't _look _like it had many, if any signs of life; the entire place had an almost rotting feeling to it. A cockroach crawled over a broken tile, antenna twitching in the air as it moved. Storefronts were shuttered and closed up, and I could see peeling wallpaper advertising the newest brands of 2003 inside. A music shop was announcing Canary's debut album, so that sort of dated it a bit.

I walked around the abandoned mall, looking for any sort of clues. Instead, all I got was the sensation that I was being watched. Pausing for a moment, I sat down on a bench with a yawn. Grass was growing in between the tiles underneath my feet, and ivy wrapped around the arms like ropes. I leaned against one of them, propping up my face with my hand. I felt my eyes start to close, and didn't bother to open them for a minute.

"Do you want to buy something?" A voice asked me from nearby. It sounded young - much younger then me or anyone I realistically would see on a regular basis. I let my eyes remain closed.

"No thanks, I'm good."

"You sure? I'm selling love for 300 yen."

"300 yen!?" My eyes shot open as I whirled to the speaker. It was a young girl with black hair tied into twintails, wearing a massive backpack standing in front of me. She had on a school uniform I couldn't recognize, but it must have been from Clarendon or something. "W-what a bargain! Could I perhaps purchase friendship, as well!?"

"Maybe for a little extra. 500 yen?"

"S-so cheap…"

"Well, Japanese currency _has _increased in value," she said, holding out her hand. "That will be fifty dollars."

"That's way out of my price range! I can't afford to give every person I meet fifty dollars just on the off-chance we become friends!"

The girl tilted her head at me, peering oddly at my face for a second. Her red eyes contrasted sharply with her white headband, and she frowned before shaking her head.

"I've changed my mind, sorry," she said with a bow. "Please stay away from me from now on."

"S-stay away?! But we've only just met! I don't even know your name!"

"Yes, I think that would be for the best."

She turned away from me, prepared to walk away with her head held high. But little did this girl know - there were no depths I would not sink to in order to question her! Perhaps I'd even hold her to my chest and pat her on the head! Tickle her armpits! I might even _tell a joke!_

Woah, wait. That's not the kind of thing that's acceptable in civilized society. I took a deep breath, calming myself with a smile. Yes, Araragi Koyomi - you must keep that in mind. You are, above and foremost, not a degenerate.

"You just got a really creepy look on your face. Are you thinking dirty thoughts?"

"D-dirty thoughts?! That's no way for an elementary schooler to talk! What have your parents been teaching you!?"

"To stay far away from people who get weird looks on their faces."

"Well," I said smugly, tilting back my head and holding a hand over my face with a laugh. "You should pay better attention to what they say! You're speaking to me, after all!"

"Ah. Yes. That's true. I apologize, Degenerate-san."

"Good, good. On your way, Elementary Schooler-chan."

She smiled at me and I waved goodbye to her as she walked away, pleased with how the next generation was coming up.

Hey.

Wait.

Didn't she just insult me? Didn't she just insult me directly to my face?

"Oy. Stop for a second. Did you just call me Degenerate-san?"

"No, that was a mistake. My bad, Deschmenerate-san."

"That's not my name either! You're just mixing up your words!"

"No, I bit my tongue Dezevermate-san."

_"You did it on purpose!" _I shouted as I leapt to my feet, pointing at her.

We glared at each other, and I crossed my arms, starting to tap my foot.

"Seriously, where are your parents? Are you lost?"

She looked puzzled for a second before smiling brightly. She nodded rapidly, bowing to me before looking up with a wink.

"I'm Hachikuji Mayoi! I'm an 0X-year old **** schooler, and this _good-looking _onii-san here has promised to-"

"Woah, hey, that's way too aggressive a gag for your first introduction. Fear not, for I, Araragi Koyomi, a 17 year old high schooler, will teach you the ways of properly introducing yourself."

"Are you okay, Araragi-san? You look like a mediocre fan author who just realized that he hadn't updated his story in several months and was trying to come up with something interesting but realized that his specialty was terrible comedic gags."

"W-what a specific kind of appearance..."

"But don't worry about me," the girl said brightly, wrapping her hands around her bag. "I'm just heading home. I come here to play sometimes, so it's fine right?"

"I suppose… Have you seen a red-haired girl around here recently?"

Hachikuji shook her head.

"No sorry," she said as she shrugged her shoulders. "She might not appear to me though, you know? Her tastes might lean away from cute girls who happen to be elementary schoolers and more towards weird boys who happen to be high school students."

She paused, tapping her lip as she thought for a moment. The abandoned mall groaned as we stood in silence for a second, and a wind rushed through the area, so crisp and clean I could almost see how blue it was.

"Or," the girl said, looking up at me with an odd smile. "Maybe she doesn't want to be found? Not all those who wander are lost, Araragi-san. Sometimes they're just looking at it from a different view."

I didn't understand what Hachikuji was telling me. Her sentence was totally illogical in the grand scheme of things, but one word stook out to me.

"But aren't you a lost child?"

"Child? I'm a snail, a snail."

"What a human-like snail…"

"What a snail-like human you are to judge me by my appearance instead of my character."

"W-what a rude little snail! Stop insulting me so directly, at least try to make it sound more polite or something!"

"Oops, I bit my tongue."

"There's no way you said all that because you bit your tongue! Apologize properly right now!"

"Sorry~" she said as she winked at me, her leg popping up. "Teehee~!"

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. I had no interest in dealing with this girl.

"Well, do you want me to help you find your way home?"

"No, I'm alright," she replied, waving her hands and shaking her head. "Like I said, I was just leaving. I thought you might want something, though."

"Like what?"

She smiled. It was bright and cheery, like a summer day in July.

"I'm sure you'll find it when you see it."

And with that, she spun on her heel and left me alone with my thoughts.

Well, she seemed like she knew what she was doing. I might as well investigate this place a little more thoroughly before bed.


End file.
